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BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

A NEW NEGRO FOR A
NEW CENTURY I

AN ACCURATE AND UP-TO-DATE RECORD OF
THE UPIVARD STRUGGLES OF THE NEGRO RACE

The Spanish-American War, Causes of It; Vivid Descriptions of Fierce

Battles; Superb Heroism and Daring Deeds

of the Negro Soldier

"Colored Officers or No Colored Soldiers"

THE CLOSING OF THE WAR AND THE PEACE TREATY

EDUCATION

Industrial Schools, Colleges, Universities and their Relationship

TO the Race Problem

PROF. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

Reconstruction and Industrial Advancement

N. B. WOOD, THE HISTORIAN

The Colored Woman and Her Part in Race Regeneration

The Names and Location of the Clubs in the National Association of Colore

Women of the United States and their Benefits to

Our Sisters in Black

BY THE FAMOUS CLUB WOMAN, WRITER AND AUTHOR

FANNIE BARRIER WILLIAMS

MAGNIFICENTLY ILLUSTRATED

MANUFACTURED BY

AMERICAN PUBLISHING HOUSE

352, 354, 356 dearborn street

Chicago, III.

Copyrighted by J. E. McBrady.

INTRODUCTION.

This book has been rightly named ''A NEW
NEGRO FOR A NEW CENTURY." The Negro

of to-day is in every phase of Hfe far advanced over
the Negro of 30 years ago. In the following pages
the progressive life of the Afro-American people has
been written in the light of achievements that wall be
surprising to people w4io are ignorant of the enlarg-
ing life of these remarkable people.

In the succeeding pages, both History and Remi-
niscence of the Afro-American have been collected
in attractive form. The stories given have been gath-
ered from the lips of the heroes themselves. Stories,
which once woven into the text-books of the Nation,
will obtain for the brave contemporaries of our own
times places in history along w- ith those of our heroic
forefathers. To these reminiscences gathered fresh
from the field, the colored pupil and historian of this
new Century must turn for their narrative.

Sectionalism, which threatened the disruption of
the Union in 1861, has been banished forever. The
cries of an enthralled and afflicted people have been
answered and humanity has been redeemed.

The numberless histories of the Spanish-Ameri-
can War that have been published and which all have
given national praise to the wdiite soldiers, the patri-
otism, the valor and bravery of the colored soldiers
has scarcely, if ever, been mentioned. I hope that
these chapters will be accepted as an authentic state-
ment of the thrilHng experiences and daring acts of

4 INTRODUCTION

the brave black men, both regulars and volunteers,
who faced the perilous exploits of war with indom-
itable courage and have made what ought to be an
imperishable impress upon the whole country, teach-
ing a lesson in patriotism, which speaks volumes for
the stability of our struggling race.

The stand that our colored soldiers took through-
out the war is discussed pro and con in the following
pages. All the colored regiments and officers that
were sent to Cuba, as well as the regiments and
officers which were afterwards sent to the Philip-
pine Islands, are carefully and correctly listed herein.

The section on Education is especially apt at a
time w^hen the American people have begun to spec-
ulate as to the value of the last 30 years of education
among the colored people. As on all questions rela-
tive to the race problem, Prof. Booker T. Washing-
ton is especially original and helpful in giving the
right point of view in estimating the value of the
education already given to the Negro and the kind
of education most needed. The race is fortunate
in having so masterful a man to present these sub-
jects with a thoroughness and authority of an His-
torian.

Mr. Wood's chapters reciting the achievements
of the Negro from the days of reconstruction are
full of interest and happy surprises.

The club movement among the colored women of
the country, written by Mrs. Fannie Barrier Will-
iams, the well-known club woman and newspaper cor-
respondent, will be found to be one of the most inter-
esting parts of the book. Nothing in the whole
book represents so distinctively the new life of this
progressive race as the ambitions, the social energy,

INTRODUCTION 5

and achievements of colored women in the organ-
ized efforts for social betterment.

This is the first attempt to publish in permanent
form a history of the progressive life of the colored
women of America, with the names and locations
of all the clubs belonging to the National Associa-
tion. These clubs are composed of some of the best
women in the country and their location will prove
of inestimable value to women traveling unprotected
or as strangers in any part of the country. We have
been frequently requested to furnish just such a
helpful directory of women's clubs.

The photographs contained in this book make a
most pleasing gallery of intelligent and progressive
men, and strong, intellectual and charming women.

J. E. MacB„

CONTENTS.

Pagtb
Chapter

I. Cause of the Spanish-American War - 11
II' Afro-American Volunteers and Regi-
ments SENT TO THE PHILIPPINES - - 23

III. Afro-American Regulars in Cuba - 36

IV*. Afro-American Regulars in Cuba

(Continued) - ' ' ' ' zl

V. The Peace Treaty ' ' ' It

VI. Afro-American Education - - vy

VII. Slavery in the Colonies - - 9^

VIII Negro Soldiers in the Revolution - lia

IX Slavery and the Constitution and

Declaration of Independence - - 14^

X. Slavery Unmasked - - - - 164

XL Underground Railroads - - ' i^^

XII. Heroes and Martyrs - ~ ~ Zyl

XIII Black Phalanx in the Rebellion - ZbO

XIV. Exodus and Settlement in the North

AND V^EST - - " " ■ ^HQ

XV. Kentucky's Hospitality - - ^^^

XVI. Fathers to the Race - - -66b
XVII. The Club Movement Among Colored

V^omen of America - - - 379
XVIH The Clubs and Their Location in
all the States of the National
Association of Colored V^omen and
Their Mission _ - - -» 406-428

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.

1. Buildings and Grounds of Tuskegee Normal and

Industrial Institute Frontispiece.

2. Booker T. Washington Frontispiece.

3. Lieut. Charles E. Young 13

4. General Maximo Gomez 17

5. Lieut. John H. Alexander 21

6. General Antonio Maceo 25

7. Col. James H. Young 31

8. Col. John R. ^larshall 35

9. Dr. J. Webb Curtis 39

10. Col. W. A. Pledger 43

11. Paul Laurence Dunbar 49

12. Alexander Miles 55

13. Hon. J. F. Wheaton 61

14. H. T. Kealing, A. M 65

15. S. Laing Williams, A. B. & M. L 69

16. T. Thomas Fortune 7^

17. Edward Wilson yy

18. Dr. Daniel H. Williams 81

19. Prof. W. E. B. DuBois 85

20. Prof. W. H. Councill 87

21. Prof. W. S. Scarborough, A. M., LL. D., Ph. D... 89

22. Prof. Lliram E. Archer, M. S 91

23. Rev. N. B., Wood 95

24. John G. Mitchell 103

25. Jndson W. Lyons 113

26. Charles Chesnut 129

27. Dr. A. R. Abbott 143

28. Dr. J. Frank McKinley 167

29. Dr. John R. Francis 183

30. George W, Williams 187

lo ILLUSTRATIONS

31. Ferdinand L. Barnett ^ . 207

2,2. John B. French 239

ZZ' Dr. I. B. Scott 257

34. Bishop Daniel A. Payne 263

35. Hon. R. L. Smith 287

2.6. Hon. H. A. Rucker 311

2.7. Frederick Douglas 335

38. Louis B. Anderson 339

39. Hon, Wm. L. Martin 347

40. E. J. Cooper 361

41. Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams 378

42. Mrs. Haydee Campbell 380

43. Miss Helen Abbott 381

44. Mrs. Anna J. Cooper 385

45. Miss Anna Jones 388

46. Miss Sarah A. Blocker 389

47. Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin 391

48. Miss Lulu Love 394

49. Miss Lutie A. Lytle 395

50. Mary C. Jackson 398

51. Mrs. Henrietta M. Archer 399

52. Mrs. John R. Francis 403

53. Mrs. Mary Church Terrell 407

54. Mrs. Hart 409

55. Ida Gray Nelson, D. D. S 412

56. Belle Garnet 413

57- S. J. Evans '415

58. Mrs. C. S. Smith 419

59- Miss Mattie B. Davis 422

60. Mrs. Mary L. Davenport 423

61. Mrs. Booker T. Washington 425

A NEW NEGRO FOR A NEW
CENTURY.

CHAPTER I.
CAUSE OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.

At bottom it will be found that most wars be-
tween nations have had a basis in self-interest or in
sentiment. Territorial encroachment in one phase
and another has been the provocation of most
wars in Europe and Asia and Africa since the
breaking up of the Roman Empire, which itself
had been built up and consolidated by the sys-
tematic conquest of weaker tribes and nations.
The wars of the Crusaders, the War of the Ref-
ormation, and the French Revolution in its initial
stages, were exceptions to the rule. They were
primarily wars based on sentiment — religious senti-
ment, humane sentiment, ''the rights of man," as
some of the demagogues — of whom the American,
Thomas Paine, was one of the most forceful, con-
spicuous and industrious — of the French Revolu-
tion were wont to characterize it.

Our own War of the Rebellion, one of the great-
est wars of modern times, when the numbers en-
gaged in it and the extent of territory affected are
considered, was primarily a war based on senti-
ment. The long but peaceful contest of the Aboli-
tionists against the Slave Power had aroused the

12 A NEW NEGRO FOR

whole country, so that everywhere, in every State
in the Union, there was a sharp division of opinion
among the people, often extending to the home
circle; but it is highly probable that the question
would still have remained unsettled, and that we
should now be agitating it, if the Slave Power had
been content to allow slave territory to remain re-
stricted to the Southern States. When it reached
out to invade free soil through the Fugitive Slave
Law and to force Kansas into the Union as a slave
State, for the purpose of keeping even the balance
of political power between the free and slave States,
then the C[uestion passed beyond the stage, of senti-
ment, in which the slave was little thought of or
considered, and became one of selfish interest on
the part both of the North and the South. The
free labor of the Northern States, and all the States
not in the slave group are so considered here,
would not tolerate the competition of slave labor,
and upon this issue the contending sections came
to open conflict.

It is true always, however, that "God makes the
wrath of man to serve him," and out of the War
of the Rebellion the slave fought his way to free-
dom. What a glorious record the Afro-American
made in that war! It is one of the brightest pages
in all history. In the early stages of the war he
was not even allowed to drive the teams or to throw
up breastworks for the Union army; before the
close of the war he was a regularly enlisted soldier
to the number of 200,000, who had fought with
such valor, such heroism, from Battery \\"agner to
Fort Fisher, from Newmarket Heights to Peters-
burg, that when the victorious Union army at last

4"^^^

-. '.3^"

CHAS. E. YOUNG,

First Lieutenant of Regular Army, Graduate of West Point

Academy, and Major of Volunteers in Cuba.

14 'A NEW NEGRO FOk

marched into Richmond, the fallen and deserted
capitol of the Lost Cause, he was accorded the
place of honor at the head of the column! In
the sententious language of General Benjamin F.
Butler — who first declared the straggling refugees
to be ''contraband of war" and put them to work —
''the colored troops fought nobly." So they did;
so nobly that never more in the lifetime of our
grand Republic will a patriotic white soldier refuse
to allow a black soldier to drink out of his canteen,
as Colonel Theodore Roosevelt of the Rough Rid-
ers expressed it, after fateful San Juan Hill, thirty-
six years after Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was
"buried with his 'niggers' " in the silver sands of
Morris Island.

The Spanish-American war was precipitated by
a sentiment of revenge and retaliation, more than
as a matter of justice to the struggling Cubans.
It would be too much to say that the United States
would not have been forced ultimately to put a
period to Spanish rule on the American continent,
as the nature of that rule was not only barbarous
and inhuman to the last degree, "the open sore
of the century," but it was a heavy expense to this
country in the necessity it entailed of preserving
the neutrality laws — policing the coast to prevent
blockade running with munitions of war and the
like — and in the interruption to commerce which
the periodical uprising of the Cubans against Span-
ish rule it made necessary. How expensive to this
country this constant interruption of trade relations
was for more than half a century, it is not easy to
estimate, but it is one of the impelling considera-
tions in the declaration of war which cannot be

A NEW CENTURY 15

overlooked. Of course, at bottom, the savage
methods of warfare adopted by the Spaniards
against the Cubans not only shocked the people
of the United States, but of the world, and did
more to create sympathy for the struggling Cubans
than anything else. Weylerism became the
synonym of barbarous warfare all over the globe,
and will perhaps secure a permanent place in the
copious lierature of brutality.

Then the heroic struggles of the Cubans for
independence in the Ten Years' War, beginning in
1868, and the last war begun in 1895, appealed to
all that is chivalric and noble in the American
character. Maximo Gomez, the grand old com-
mander-in-chief of the Cuban forces, and Antonio
Maceo, the Phil Sheridan of the Cubans, the in-
vincible mulatto leader, who gave his life for Cuba
as his eight brothers have done before him, and
Quintin Bandera, ''the black thunderbolt," and
Jose Marti and a hundred others, by their brilliancy
and tenacity and humanity, invited the sympathy
of Christian mankind everywhere. What a mag-
nificent galaxy of military heroes the Cubans have
furnished to the history of Liberty! It is un-
matched in the annals of any land, except our own.
It will forever remain the chief pride and glory of
the people of Cuba, whatever fate the future may
have in store for them, and they deserve the best.

But the American people were reluctant to take
any part in the internal affairs of a friendly power,
such as Spain was. They could not do so, in the
absence of justifiable provocation, without exciting
the suspicion and perhaps the open antagonism of
European powers in sympathy with the Spanish

i6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

crown and jealous of the growing power of the
United States. Great pressure was brought to
bear on President Grant in the Ten Years' War to
interpose the power of the United States between
the belligerents, but he steered clear of entangling
alliances, contenting himself with cleaving close to
the advice given by George Washington when he
retired to Mount Vernon, and insisting upon a
strict observance of the Monroe Doctrine, both of
which, as a result of the Spanish-American War,
have got "lost in the shuffle," so to speak, whether
for national weal or woe remains to be seen. When
the war of 1895 broke out it was not expected that
it would last long, and the people of the United
States were disposed to allow Spain a reasonable
time to suppress it. President Cleveland w^as de-
cidedly opposed to interference on the part of the
United States between Spain and the insurgents.
Nevertheless, in February, 1896, Congress passed
the following joint resolutions:

''Be it resolved by the Senate and the House of
Representatives of the United States of America,
that in the opinion of Congress a condition of pub-
lic war exists between the Government of Spain
and the Government for some time maintained by
force of arms by the people of Cuba; and that the
United States should maintain a strict neutrality
between the contending powers, according to each
all the rights of belligerents in the ports and terri-
tory of the United States.

"Resolved, further, that the friendly offices of
the United States should be offered by the Presi-
dent to the Spanish Government for the recogni-
tion of the independence of Cuba."

GEN. MAXIMO GOMEZ,

Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Army in the Struggle
for Freedom,

i8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

The two years intervening between 1896, when
the joint resolution was adopted, and 1898, were
years of momentous events in Cuba and of diplo-
matic friction between the United States and
Spain, of which the recall of the Spanish minister,
De Lome, in February, for writing a disparaging
letter about President McKinley, was an incident.
Indeed the tension between the two countries
grew^ more and more strained as the conflict in
Cuba proceeded. A large section of the American
people and press insisted upon American interven-
tion, which clamor was persistently resented by the
haughty Spanish Government. But President Mc-
Kinley, like President Cleveland, was determined
to avert war if possible. He used the great powers
of his high office in the cause of peace. But there
is "a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew
them as we may."

On the 25th of January, 1898, the battleship
Maine glided into the harbor of Havana. She
went there on an errand of peace as the representa-
tive of a friendly power. She was located in the
harbor by representatives of the Spanish Govern-
ment, who knew where the torpedo mines were
located. On the 15th of February the battleship
Maine was blown to atoms by a floating mine,
together with 266 American sailors, of whom more
than thirty were Afro-Americans. A chronicler of
the incident says: "A wave of horror and indig-
nation swept over the country. The belief was
instinctive that the act was the product of treach-
ery. The fury of the people was restrained only
by the urgent request of the Captain of the Maine
in a dispatch to the Navy Department, that ''judg-

A NEW CENTURY 19

ment be suspended until an official investigation

could be had."

The board of inquiry appointed by the President
reported that "the loss of the Maine was not m any
respect due to fault or negligence on the part oi
any of the officers or members of her crew; that
the ship was destroyed by an explosion of a sub-
marine mine, which caused the partial explosion of
two or more of her forward magazines; and that
no evidence has been obtained fixing the responsi-
bility for the destruction of the Maine upon any
person or persons." By the time this report was
submitted the war fever was intense. Congress
had appropriated $50,000,000 for the national de-
fense, and the President fought for delay m order
that the countrv might be prepared when the issue
should be joined. March 28 the President sub-
mitted to Congress the findings of the board of
inquiry in the destruction of the Maine. Consul-
General Lee left Havana April 10, thus severing
diplomatic relations with the Spanish authority in
the island. April 18, 1898, Congress adopted the
following declaration of war, which was signed by
the President April 20: ^ , • u 1,

^'Whereas, The abhorrent conditions which have
existed for more than three years in the Island of
Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the
moral sense of the people of the United States, have
been a disgrace to Christian civihzation, culminat-
ing as they have in the destruction of a United
States battleship with 266 of its officers and crew,
while on a friendlv visit in the harbor of Havana,
and cannot longer be endured, as has been set forth
by the President of the United States in his mes-

20 A NEW NEGRO FOR

sage to Congress of April 1 1, 1898, upon which the
action of Congress was invited; therefore,

"Resolved, By the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives of the United States of America, in Con-
gress assembled —

''First — That the people of the Island of Cuba
are, and of right ought to be, free and independent.

^'Second — That it is the duty of the United
States to demand, and the Government of the
United States does hereby demand, that the Gov-
ernment of Spain at once relinquish its authority
and government in the Island of Cuba, and with-
draw its land and naval forces from Cuba and
Cuban waters.

"Third— That the President of the United States
be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to
use the entire land and naval forces of the United
States, and to call into the actual service of the
United States the militia of the several States, to
such extent as may be necessary to carry these res-
olutions into efTect.

"Fourth — That the United States hereby dis-
claims any disposition or intention to exercise
sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over said island,
except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its
determination when that is completed to leave the
government and control of the island to its peo-
ple."

Minister Stewart L. Woodford was not allowed
by the Spanish Government to present the ultima-
tum of the United States, his passports having been
handed to him at 7 o'clock in the morning of April
21, and he left Madrid, from which severance of
diplomatic relations dat-es the actual beginning of

LIEUTENANT JOHN H. ALEXANDER,
Gradnate of West Point.

22 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the war. April 24 the Queen Regent formally
communicated to the Spanish Cortes the existence
of war. April 25 the American Congress passed
the following bill without a division:

*'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Rep-
resentatives of the United States of America in
Congress assembled —

"First — That war be, and the same is hereby de-
dared to exist, and that war has existed since the
2ist day of April, A. D. 1898, including said day,
between the United States of America and the
Kingdom of Spain.

"Second — That the President of the United
States be, and he hereby is, directed and empow-
ered to use the entire land and naval forces of the
United States, and to call into the actual service
of the United States the militia of the several
States, to such extent as may be necessary to carry
this act into effect."

April 21 the blockade of the ports of Cuba was
proclaimed and Admiral Sampson's squadron was
ordered to enforce it, and on April 23 a call for
125,000 volunteers was issued. June 9 the House
passed a war revenue act and the Senate concurred
in it June 10. The first decisive battle of the war
was fought in Manila Bay, Philippine Islands, May
I, 1898, when Admiral George Dewey's fleet de-
stroyed the Spanish fleet.

CHAPTER 11.

AFRO-AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS.

Never before since the war of 1812 had the
RepubHc had an opportunity to test the temper
of the people as to their loyalty in facing a foreign
enemy. The Civil War had estranged the sections
almost as much as the agitation of the slave ques-
tion had; for it left a bitterness in its resultsi —
such as the manumission and enfranchisement of
the late slaves and the reconstruction policy, forced
upon the country by that uncompromising radical,
Representative Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania
— which seemed to be intensified rather than tem-
pered by time. The white people of the Southern
States resented the entire policy forced upon them
as the result of the war, and combined against the
Northern States in politics, State and National, for
the purpose of bringing to naught, as far as such
combination could effect it the policy so forced
upon them. The bitterness rankled in their souls
all the more as the war had destroyed well nigh all
their wealth, along wath it their slave property,
which had become co-equal in citizenship; a trans-
formation in itself of the most radical and provok-
ing character, from the standpoint of those who,
for two centuries and more, had been taught to
and did regard the African as less than human, as
simply property.

But the declaration of war with Spain was re-
sponded to with a fervor and enthusiasm m every

54 A NBIV NECRO FOR

State of the Union, among all the race elements of
the population, that put at rest forever any linger-
ing suspicion that the Republic would be divided in
sentiment in the face of a foreign foe. Nowhere
in the country was more enthusiasm displayed than
in the Southern States. The old flag, the stars
and stripes, for the first time since i860 w-as dis-
played everywhere in the Southern States. This
was, too all the more surprising, w'hen it is remem-
bered that of the total Cuban population of 1,631,-
687, 528,998 are classed as negroes and mulattoes,
and that these latter, in all the revolutions in Cuba,
have been, for the most 'part, the inspiration in
council and backbone in the field, for no one will
dispute the power and influence in civil life of such
men as the brilliant journalist and agitator, Juan
Guelberto Gomez, who lived in exile as much as in
Cuba, and in military life of such mien as General
Antonio Maceo and his eight brothers. General
Flores Crombet, a veteran of the Ten Years' War,
who was killed early in the war of 1895, General
Quintin Bandera and a host of others, less re-
nowned but equally devoted to the cause of Cuba
and its independence of Spanish tyranny. When
these facts are properly weighed against the pro-
nounced prejudice of the Southern whites against
people of the African race, the enthusiasm with
which the whites of the Southern States espoused
the cause of the Cubans and responded to the
President's call for State troops and volunteers
would seem to be inexplicable, and is upon the
surface.

It may be that the course pursued in the first
instance by President McKinley in retaining Gen-

GENERAL ANTONIO MACEO.

This late General was second in command of the Cuban
Army.

26 A NEW NEGRO FOR

eral Fitz lUgh Lee, of Virginia, who was appointed
by President Cleveland, as Consul-General at
Havana, when Republicans all over the country
were clamoring for his removal, had much to do
with arousing the enthusiasm of the white people
of the Southern States in the Cuban ''war for inde-
pendence and humanity." Very true it is that the
President's course in retaining General Lee at
Havana, and in other acts of liberalism shown by
him towards the white people of the Southern
States, did much to enlist the active sympathy and
support of the Southern Senators and Representa-
tives in Congress in the war policy, most of them
voting the $50,000,000 ^var credit and supporting
other ne essary measures for the successful prose-
cution of the war.

Then in the distribution of military honors the
President was extremely generous to the whites
of the South, who were given three of the Major-
Generals of Volunteers, viz.: General Fitzhugh
Lee, General Joseph Wheeler, General M. C. But-
ler. They also fared equally well in the distribu-
tion of all the other military appointments. Be-
cause of all these reasons, creditable alike to the
President and the white men of the South, the bit-
terness engendered by the Civil War, which had
so long estranged the sections, was greatly soft-
ened, and made the Spanish-American War one of
the most popular in the history of the country.
The white South saw that it was treated as fairly
as the white North, and when men have that con-
viction they are always liable to display a magna-
nimity and enthusiasm in a given cause which are
the best portents of its probable success. At any

A NEW CENTURY 27

rate, it proved to be so in the Spanish-American
War, as in all our wars of the past, and will do so
in all our wars of the future. A people numerically
as strong and sustained by such inexhaustible and
diversified material resources as those of the United
States, when moved by a common purpose and
acting together, must prove, all things being equal,
invincible in a conflict with any existing single for-
eign power. It has always been so in the past —
in the two wars with Great Britain, in the Mexican
War and in the Spanish- American War.

The white people of the Southern States, al-
though uniformly opposed in politics to the admin-
istration of President McKinley, have no room
whatever for complaint in the matter of
their treatment in the Spanish War. They
were given their full share of the military
and naval honors, of high and low de-
gree, and the quotas of their States were accepted
upon an equal footing with those of the other
States of the Union. Nor was this confidence mis-
placed. As Consul-General at Havana, General
Lee sustained the honor and dignity of the Repub-
Hc with marked courage and ability; Major-Gen-
eral Joseph Wheeler came out of the conflict as one
of the heroes of the war, as did also Lieutenant
Henr}' Pearson Hobson, whose sinking of the i\Ier-
rimac at the mouth of Santiago harbor was one of
the most daring and heroic exploits in naval war-
fare. It is interesting to note here that in the
Santiago campaign Major-General Wheeler had in
his command one squadron of four troops each of
the fighting black Ninth and Tenth Cavalry,
United States Regulars. Thirty-six years before

28 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the little General was leading Confederate soldiers
in the effort to perpetuate the slavery of black men
and giving scant quarter to black soldiers in the
uniform of the United States who came his way.
There w'as no more significant feature in the
Spanish-American War than General \Yheeler lead-
ing black regulars against the Spaniards to free
black Cubans.

The Afro-American citizens of the United
States W'Cre as enthusiastic as others to enlist and
fight. Everywhere, in the North and the South,
they showed willingness and eagerness to enlist.
There were no cowards among them, as there had
been none in the Civil War, and as there will be
none in any other crisis the Republic may be called
upon to face. But they were to be subjected to
very great and mortifying disappointment. Un-
der the conditions of the first call for volunteers
only the organized militia of the States was ac-
ceptable. This rule barred the Afro-American out
entirely. And the President had not designated
any Afro-Americans to be general staff or line offi-
cers. In the Northern and Western States the
Afro-Americans are so relatively few in number
that comparatively few of them are connected with
the State militia, those in so great a State as New-
York, for instance, being without any representa-
tion whatever. A few^ were represented in other
Northern States, to whom appropriate reference
will be made at the proper time.

The Afro- Americans of the Northern and West-
ern States who thus found themselves excluded
from participation in the war, because they w^ere
Mot represented, except in isolated instances, in

A NEW CENTURY 29

the State militia, more generally styled the Nation-
al Guard, made frantic and heroic efforts to break
through the stone wall and get into the Avar any-
how. Volunteer regiments were raised in many
instances, and first offered to the State authorities,
which, under the la.w governing the National
Guard, they could not accept. Tender was then
made to the President direct, who referred all such
applications to the War Department, and they were
not heard of any more. The War Department
was not in a position to accept volunteers w^ho were
not designated by the States. Congress under-
took to remedy the defect by authorizing the form-
ation of ten immune regiments, but this came to
naught, because the War Department insisted upon
giving the staff and line officers (above the grade
of second lieutenants) to white men. The Afro-
Americans would not tolerate this; consequently
only four Afro- American regiments were recruited
under this act— the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and
Tenth — and they were officered by white men un-
der protest and threats of rebellion on the part of
the men. None of these regiments saw active ser-
vice, although some of them did a little garrison
duty in CulDa.

This question of officering Afro- American troops
became a burning one during the existence of the
war, and it is one now. It is doubtful if a regmient
so officered could be recruited in any State by State
or Federal authority.

The writer of this history is under obligation to
Congressman George H. White, of North Carolina,
for securing a complete Hst of the Afro-American
volunteers mustered into the service from, the Ad-

30 A NEW NEGRO FOR

jutant-General of the United States Army, which
is as follows:

Third Alabama Volunteer Infantry, First Brig-
ade, second division. Fourth Army Corps.

Eighth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, not brigaded.

Companies A and B, Indiana Volunteer Infan-
try, not brigaded.

Thirty-third Kansas Volunteer Infantry, not
brigaded.

Ninth Ohio Battalion, Volunteer Infantry, Sec-
ond Brigade, first division. Second Army Corps.

Sixth Virginia Volunteer Infantry, Third Brig-
ade, second division, First Army Corps (transferred
later to the Third Brigade, first division. First
Army Corps.)

Seventh United States Volunteer Infantry, Third
Brigade, first division, First Army Corps.

Eighth United States Volunteer Infantry, not
brigaded.

Ninth United States Volunteer Infantry, not
brigaded.

Tenth United States Volunteer Infantry, First
Brigade, third division, First Army Corps.

The Third North Carolina Volunteer Infantry
was called out by Governor Russell and went into
camp at Camp Russell, but it was not mustered into
the United States service. It was of^cered
throughout by Afro-Americans, James H. Young
being the colonel commanding. The only other
regiment so officered was the Eighth lUinois, Colo-
nel J. R. Marshall commanding. This regiment
did garrison duty in the Province of Santiago for
some time after the war, and Colonel Marshall
acted for a time as governor of San Luis. The

JAMES H. YOUNG,
Colonel Thiid North Carolina Volunteer Infantry, Ralei

N. C.

32 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Ninth Ohio Battalion was commanded by Brevet
Major Charles Young, a lieutenant in the regular
army, and the only Afro-American holding such a
position in the regular army. He is a graduate of
the West Point Military Academy. His command
was stationed first at Camp Alger, Va., and then
transferred to Camp Meade, Pa., and from there
to Summerville, S. C, where it was finally muster-
ed out. The Twenty-third Kansas was ofBcered by
Afro-Americans, with the exception of colonel and
lieutenant colonel. The best-known captain of
the regiment, which did garrison duty in Cuba for
a short while, was John L. Waller, ex-United
States Consul to Madagascar, who got into trouble
with the French authorities after he was superseded
in the consulship by a Mr. Witte, of Georgia,
presumably because of a valuable concession of
rubber land which he had secured from the Queen
of Madagascar before the French assumed the pro-
tectorate of the island. The Third Alabama and
Sixth Virginia battalions were mustered into the
service with Afro-American officers, but for some
unexplained reason these were changed for white
officers, and the action came near causing a riot in
both regiments. The four immune regiments were
officered by white men, with the exception of the
second lieutenants.

Company L, Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer In-
fantry, has the distinction of being the only Afro-
American company mustered into the service as a
part of a white regiment. It was commanded by
Captain Williams, and went to Porto Rico with
the expedition commanded by Major-General
Nelson A. Miles.

A NEW CENTURY 33

The President commissioned about one hun-
dred Afro-American second lieutenants in the vol-
unteer service. Two paymasters were appointed,
with the rank of major — John R. Lynch, of Missis-
sippi, an ex-Congressman and ex-Fourth Auditor
of the Treasury, and Richard R. Wright of Geor-
gia, President of the State Agricultural and Me-
chanical College. Mr. Wright resigned after the
war, but Major Lynch has been continued in the
service. Rev. C. T. Walker, of Georgia, and Rev.
Richard Carroll, of South Carolina, were commis-
sioned as chaplains in the volunteer service.

The absence of Afro-American troops from the
quotas of the Southern States will be noted. The
explanation is that it is not the policy of those
States to comprehend such troops in their militia.
Virginia, South Carolina, North CaroHna, Georgia
and Alabama were exceptions.

The governors of Virginia, North Carolina and
Alabama offered these troops, with their Afro-
American officers, when it was necessary to fill out
the quotas of their States called for by the Presi-
dent. Those of Virginia and Alabama were mus-
tered into the United States service, but the officers
were finally changed to white men. The North
Carolina regiment was not mustered into the ser-
vice of the United States. The governors of
South Carolina and Georgia refused to offer any
such troops, with the proviso that they would do
so when there were no longer any white troops
to offer.

We hope the colored troops in the Philippines,
which are the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth In-
fantry, portions of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry,

34 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteer
Regiments, officered by colored men, will give a
good account of themselves.

There is no room for doubt that if the war had
been prolonged and Afro-American volunteers
could have faced the enemy, they would have given
a good account of themselves, as did the volun-
teers in the Civil War and the four regiments of
regulars in the Santiago campaign under Major-
General William R. Shafter.

COL. JOHN R. MARSHALL,
Colonel of the Eighth Illinois Infantry in the Spanish-
American War.

CHAPTER III.

AFRO-AMERICAN REGULARS IN CUBA.

There are four regiments of Afro-American sol-
diers in the regular army of the United States.
They are the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth In-
fantry and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. These
four regiments or parts of them were fortunate
enough to go to Cuba and to participate in all the
hard fighting there from the beginning to the end
of the brief campaign. They did not go to Cuba
to win glory or to demonstrate the courage and
capacity of their race in the tent and the field.
They went to Cuba already covered with glory,
earned in a hundred battles in the Civil War and in
all the Indian wars in the far West, from 1866,
when the regiments w^ere first mustered in the ser-
vice at New Orleans, to the battle of San Juan
Hill, thirty-two years later, in 1898.

It seems incredible, in view of the record these
regiments have made in the regular army, and the
record the Afro-American regiments made in the
Civil War, a record any race may well be proud of,
that there should have been any one in the Republic
who doubted the capacity and courage of Afro-
American soldiers; and yet there were plenty of
people who did so, and who were greatly surprised
and taken back when these veterans in Cuba, these
"smoked Yankees," as the affrighted Spaniards
called them —

A NEW CENTURY 37

'^Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They who had fought so well,
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them — "

emerging on the top of El Caney and San Juan
Hill, in a mad charge, singing as they mowed down
the enemy: "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old
Town To-night." The incredulity can only be ac-
counted for upon the theory that in the main one
generation is ignorant of what another did, despite
the activity of the daily and periodical press and of
the making of books without number. Then, too,
there is a deep-seated disposition among the w^hite
Americans to discredit the Afro-Americans, how-
ever worthily they acquit themselves, in war or
peace. This disposition was shown in a very
marked and provoking degree in the news dis-
patches from Cuba during the days of active hos-
tilities, when the part taken by Afro- American sol-
diers was minimized or slurred over, except in rare
instances. It was not until after the war was over,
and those who took part in it returned to the
United States and gave their side of the story that
the truth and the whole truth came out.

On the morning of the 24th of June, 1898, the
convoy of the Fifth Army Corps arrived off Guan-
tanamo Bay, and on June 22 the disembarkation
was begun at Baiquiri. By the evening of the
24th the troops wxre all ashore. The Fifth Army
Corps was divided into the following brigades:

38 A NEW NEGRO FOR

THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN.

Fifth Army Corps, Major-General William R.
Shafter commanding. First Division, Major-Gen-
eral J. F. Kent commanding.

First Brigade) — Sixth and Sixteenth United
States Infantry and Seventy-first New York Vol-
unteer Infantry.

Second Brigade — Second, Tenth and Twenty-
first United States Infantry.

Third Brigade — Ninth, Thirteenth and Twenty-
fourth United States Infantry.

Second Division, Major-General H. W. Lawton
commanding.

First Brigade — Eighth and Twenty-second
United States Infantry and Second Massachusetts
Volunteer Infantry.

Second Brigade — First, Fourth and Twenty-
fifth United States Infantry.

Third Brigade — Seventh, Twelfth and Seven-
teenth United States Infantry.

Division of dismounted cavalry, Major-General
Joseph Wheeler commanding.

One squadron of four troops draiwn from the
Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth
United States Cavalry.

One squadron of four troops draAvn from the
First United States Volunteer Cavalry (Rough
Riders).

The artillery consisted of Light Batteries E and
K, First United States Artillery, and Batteries A
and F, Second United States Artillery, commanded
by Major J. W. Dillenback.

Reinforcements composed of General Dufifield^s

DR. J. WEBB CURTIS,
Physician and Assistant Surgeon of the Eighth IlHnois in
Cuba and the Forty-eighth United States Volun-
teers in the PhiUppines.

40 A NEW NEGRO FOR

brigade joined General Shafter later, and consisted
of the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Michigan
Volunteer Infantry, and parts of two dismounted
squadrons of cavalry. Lomia's battery of heavy
artillery from the Fifth Regiment, United States
Artillery, also arrived with six siege mortars, but
they were not disembarked.

The number of officers in the expedition was
815, and 16,072 men.

The Spanish troops offered but slight resistance,
and General Lawton's division reached Siboney
June 2y, they pushed forward, and the following
day the place was occupied by General Kent's divis-
ion. The orders were that Lawton's division
should, on June 24, take up a defensive position
between Siboney and Santiago; Kent's division was
to be held near Santiago; General Bates was to
support General Lawton; General Wheeler's cav-
alry division was to occupy the rear on the road to
Baiquiri. General Young's brigade of Wheeler's
division, consisting of part of the Tenth United
States Cavalry and two battalions of the First Vol-
unteer Cavalry (known as the Rough Riders),
passed Lawton on the night of the 23-24, and was
in consequence in advance on the morning of the
24th. On the Santiago road, some three miles
from Siboney, there is a strong natural position
called Las Guasimas. The Spaniards were posted
here in considerable strength, and Young's brigade
was taken by surprise. After a short but fierce
engagement the enemy was driven from its posi-
tion.

It was in this engagement that, it is said, the
Tenth Cavalry saved the Rough Riders from an-

A NEW CENTURY 41

nihilation, but Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in his
story of his regiment denies this, and also that,
there was any surprise. A great many members
of the Tenth make the claim and many privates
among the Rough Riders allowed it. In his story
of the engagement Colonel Roosevelt says: ''Our
men behaved very well indeed — white regulars,
colored regulars and Rough Riders alike. The
newspaper press failed to do full justice to the
white regulars, in my opinion, from the simple rea-
son that everybody knew they would fight, where-
as there had been a good deal of question as to
how the Rough Riders, who were volunteer troops,
and the Tenth Cavalry, who were colored, would
behave; so there was a tendency to exalt our deeds
at the expense of those of the First Regiment,
whose courage and good conduct were taken for
granted."

Captain Charles G. Ayers made the following
report to General Young, June 2y, 1898 (annual
report of the Major-General commanding the
army, 1898, p. 355):

**Sir: I have the honor to report that on the
24th instant two commissioned ofBcers and fifty-
three enlisted men of Troop E, Tenth Cavalry,
went into action, with other troops of the brigade,
against the regular Spanish infantry, and were
placed by General Young in person in support of
Captain J. W. Watson's (Tenth Cavalry) two
Hotchkiss guns, and also to support the troops in
our front should they need it. The position was
in plain view of the Spaniards, who occupied a
high ridge and had the exact range; but pursuant
to their instructions they held their position one

42 A NEW NEGRO FOR

hour and a quarter without firing a shot, for fear
of firing upon their own men. Their coolness and
fine discipline were superb.

''In connection herewith, it gives me great pleas-
ure to call attention to the great gallantry of Sec-
ond Lieutenant George Vidmer, Tenth Cavalry,
and Privates Burr Neal, W. R. Nelson, Augustus
Walby and A. C. White, who, under a heavy fire,
came to my assistance in carrying Major Bell,
First Cavalry, to a place of safety, he being shot
through the leg belonv the knee and his leg
broken."

The Rough Riders occupied the left column,
while the regulars, including one squadron of the
Tenth and one of the First Cavalry, occupied the
right column; of the latter Brigadier-General B. M.
Young says (annual report of the Major-General
commanding, p. 333): ''The fine discipline of
these particular troops was almost perfect. The
ammunition expended by the two squadrons en-
gaged in an incessant advance for one hour and
fifteen minutes averaged less than ten rounds per
man. The fine quality of these troops is also
shown by the fact that there was not a single
straggler, and in not one instance was an attempt
made by any soldier to fall out in the advance to
assist the wounded or carry back the dead."

General Joseph Wheeler says (Ibid. 163): "I
was immediately with the troops of the First and
Tenth Regular Cavalry, dismounted and personally
noticed their brave and good conduct, which will
be specially mentioned by General Young."

This Las Guasimas engagement cleared the way
to Santiago, 964 American troops having dislodged

COL. W. A. PLEDGER,
Orator and Editor, Atlanta, Ga.

44 A NEW NEGRO FOR

4,000 Spaniards, with the loss of 16 killed and 52
wounded.

From June 24 to June 30 the time was spent in
concentrating the American troops in preparing
for the advance towards Santiago, the objective
point. El Caney is a small village to the northeast
of Santiago, and three miles away, on the same
side, were the San Juan Hills and blockhouses.
The approach to the town was by that route.
Lawton's, Kent's divisions and Grimes' battery
were ordered to move on the hills. The disposi-
tions were made June 30, and on the morning of
July I, at 6 o'clock, the conflict opened, with Law-
ton in position, Chafifee's brigade on the right,
Ludlow's on the left, and Miles' in the center. The
conflict soon became general. The naturally
strong position of the enemy was made more so
by the stone blockhouses and forts. After two
hours' fighting Bates' brigade was ordered from
the rear to Lawton's support. The Spaniards
fought with great courage and pertinacity, but
were slowly driven from their entrenchments and
forced to retire. From the heights Grimes' bat-
tery played upon the San Juan blockhouses with
great effect. The Spaniards used smokeless pow-
der, and it was difficult to locate them. Wheeler's
and Kent's divisions were now ordered to deploy,
Wheeler to the right and Kent to the left. Gen-
eral Shafter tells the story of the remainder of the
fighting as follows:

In the meantime Kent's division, with the ex-
ception of two regiments of Hawkins' brigade,
being thus uncovered, moved rapidly to the front
from the forks previously mentioned in the road,

A NEW CENTURY 45

utilizing both trails, but more especially the one
to the left, and, crossing the creek, formed for at-
tack in front of San Juan Hill., During this
formation the Second Brigade suffered severely.
While personally superintending this movement its
gallant commander. Colonel Wykoif, was killed.
The command of the brigade then devolved upon
Lieutenant-Colonel Worth, Thirteenth Infantry,
who was soon severely wounded, and next upon
Lieutenant-Colonel Liscomb, Twenty-fourth Infan-
try, who, five minutes later, also fell under the ter-
rible fire of the enemy, and the command of the
brigade then devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel
Ewers, Ninth Infantry.

"While the formation just described was taking
place. General Kent took measures to hurry for-
ward his rear brigade. The Tenth and Second In-
fantry were ordered to follow Wykoff's brigade,
while the Twenty-first was sent on the right-hand
road to support the First Brigade, under General
Hawkins, who had crossed the stream and formed
on the right of the division. The Second and
Tenth Infantry, Colonel E. P. Pearson, command-
ing, moved forward in good order on the left of
the division, passed over a green knoll, and drove
the enemy back toward his trenches.

After completing their formation under a de-
structive fire, and advancing a short distance, both
divisions found iv. their front a wide bottom, in
which had been placed a barbed-wire entanglement,
and beyond which there was a high hill, along the
crest of which the enemy was strongly posted.
Nothing daunted, these gallant men pushed on to
drive the enemy from his chosen position, both

46 A NEW NEGRO FOR

divisions losing heavily. In this assault Colonel
Hamilton, Lieutenants Smith and Shipp were
killed, and Colonel Carroll, Lieutenants Thayer
and Myer, all in the cavalry, were wounded."

The day closed with the Americans holding" all
they had gained. The fight was renetwed on the
morning of the 2d and the day closed with
the American positions well advanced. July 3, in
the morning, the fight was opened anew, but the
enemy soon gave way and the firing was discon-
tinued. At 8:30 o'clock General Shafter demand-
ed the surrender of the Spanish army, and on July
17 this was done, there having been no fighting in
the interval, pending the negotiations for the sur-
render. The Spanish troops surrendered number-
ed 22,000.

The American losses in the three days' fighting
— July I, 2 and 3 — were as follows: Twenty-two
officers and 208 men killed; 81 officers and 1,203
men w^ounded; 79 missing.

Some of the exploits of the Afro-American
troopers will be told in the following chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE AFRO-AMERICAN REGULARS IN CUBA.

In all the fierce fighting of July i, 2 and 3, in
assaulting and carrying by storm the heights of El
Caney and the blockhouses on the top of the San
Juan hills the members of the four Afro-American
regiments displayed a courage and heroism equal
to that of their white comrades in arms. The
writer has searched in vain through the reports of
staff and line ofBcers, published in the annual re-
port of the Major-General commanding, for an in-
stance of cowardice or infraction of discipline.
They all uniformly report that men and ofiicers
alike shared the hazards and the glory of the con-
flict with the courage, intrepidity and cheerfulness
which have always marked the regular soldiers of
the army of the United States. In all the volumi-
nous reports there is but one discordant note, and
that was the failure of the Seventy-first New York
Volunteers to move into action as ordered, owing
to the conduct of their officers, all of whom have
since been removed from their commands. But
not a murmur against the conduct of the black
regulars is to be found in the reports; on the con-
trary, there are words upon w^ords of praise from
their gallant commanders, all of them whites, and
graduates of the West Point Military Acaderny,
who displayed a pardonable and praiseworthy pride
in the conduct of the brave men in their commands.
This high and unimpeachable testimony is a price-
less legacy not only to the Afro-American people,

48 A NEW NEGRO FOR

who have so many prejudices to fight down, but
to the white American people, whose honor and
glory and safety and pride are wrapped up in the
brave sons who wear the uniform of the Republic,
on land and sea, who go forth to fight the enemy.

Colonel Leonard Wood, commanding Second
Brigade, Cavalry Division, says (Major-General's
Report, p. 343): "In regard to the conduct of the
brigade as a whole, I can only say that it was
superb. That dismounted cavalry should have been
able to charge regular infantry in strong position,
supported by artillery and the general lay of the
land, seems almost incredible, yet this is exactly
what the Cavalry Division of the Fifth Army Corps
did in this fight, passing over a long zone of fire
and charging steep hills, topped with works and
blockhouses."

Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Daggett, Twenty-fifth
Infantry, commanding, says (Ibid, p. 386): ''All
officers and men behaved gallantly." (Ibid, 388):
'The Twenty-fifth Infantry caused the surrender
of the stone fort." General ChafTee disputes this
(Ibid, p. 388), and awards the credit to the Twelfth
Infantry. He says: "The troops arriving at the
stone fort (El Caney) were there in the following
order: Twelfth Infantry, which took the place;
the command of General Bates, some minutes later;
the Twenty-fifth Infantry. A captain of the Twenty-
fifth Infantry claimed the capture of the place from
me at the time and on the ground, and I told him
then that his proposition was absurd, and stated
to him the order in which the troops arrived." At
any rate, the three commanders must have reached
the fort pretty close together.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR,
The Poet-Laureate of the Negro Race,

50 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Captain A. C. Markley, Twenty-fourth Infantry,
commanding regiment, says (Ibid, 434): "On the
march to the front this regiment was the rear one
of the three in its brigade. After coming under
fire, it was ordered to take a position on the left,
and marched about a mile by the flank, under fire,
to its place; advanced over the flat the same as the
other regiments assisting in the capture of Fort
San Juan, getting on the top of the hill among
the first, with a creditable number of men of its
small companies, and in time to get men killed
and to silence one gun by volley fire." Captain
Henry Wygant, Twenty-fourth Infantry, com-
manding Second Battalion, says (Ibid., 435): The
gallantry and bearing shown by the officers and
soldiers of the regiment under this trying ordeal
was such that it has every reason to be proud of
its record."

At the Lenox Lyceum, in New York, October
14, 1898, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt (First
United States Volunteer Cavalry, the "Rough
Riders"), speaking to a mass meeting favorable to
his candidacy for governor of New York, said:
"Now a word as to the colored man in military
life. I'm glad to see here one or two men in uni-
form. (Cheers.) In fact, I rather think that however
any other colored man may vote, you won't get
a trooper of the Ninth or Tenth Cavalry to vote
against a Rough Rider. (Great cheering.) And
the feeling is reciprocated. As I heard one of
the Rough Riders say after the charge at San
Juan: 'Well, the Ninth and Tenth men are all
right. They can drink out of our canteens.'

"That night my men had lain in reserve for an

^ NEW CENTURY 5^

uncomfortable hour, got the order to go forward,
and we struck the Ninth Cavalry and in the first
charge, on what we called Kettle Hill, they and
we went up absolutely intermingled, so that no
one could tell whether it was the Rough Riders
or the men of the Ninth who came forward with
the greater courage to offer their lives in the ser-
vice of their country. One or two other cavalry
regiments joined us on the hill and we turned our
attention to the San Juan blockhouse and began
volley firing until we took that. Eventually I
found myself on the hill nearest the city, the high-
est officer there, and in command of sections of
a number of cavalry regiments, including portions
of the Ninth and ^ Tenth. That night we took
spades and worked at the trenches shoulder to
shoulder, white and colored men together. So I
had opportunities of seeing the colored troops un-
der all circumstances — charging, lying under fire,
digging in the trenches, advancing with us."

"Never did anything but advance did you?"
shouted a man in the rear, and the query was
greeted with applause and laughter, which in-
creased when Colonel Roosevelt replied with a
whimsical expression of face:

'Well, now that you remind me of it, I don't
thinkwedidgo in the opposite direction very much.
When you've been under fire with a man," he con-
tinued, ''and fought side by side with him, and
eaten with him when you had anything to eat, and
hungered with him when you hadn't, you feel a
sort of comradeship that you don't feel for any
man that you have been associated with in other
ways, and I don't think that any Rough Rider

52 A NEW NEGRO FOR

will ever forget the tie that binds us to the Ninth
and Tenth Cavalry. (Cheers.) As I say, that gives
you a sense of comradeship that nothing else can
give. Of course, we feel that for all who fought
with us there, regular or volunteer, and the reason
why we feel that enthusiasm toward our fellow-
soldiers is one which should have equal weight
in civil life. It wasn't because the colored troop-
ers were colored that we admired them any more
than it was because the white cavalrymen of the
First, Third and Sixth were white that we admired
them. In each case it was because they were
brave men, worthy of respect.

"And nofw, in civil life, it should be the same. I
don't want to see any of our citizens claiming or
receiving favors because he is of a certain race,
color or creed, but I want to see every American
citizen treated on his merits as a man. As the men
of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry reflected honor
not only on the entire American people, but espe-
cially on those of their own race, so I hope and
believe that you will honor yourselves and all your
fellow-Americans by fearless and honorable dis-
charge of the obligations of citizenship in these
times of peace and if you so do your duty it is
your right that you should receive the same treat-
ment in every respect as other citizens without
respect to race or creed."

In view of this pronouncement there was a very
great deal of surprise when, in his story of the
Rough Riders (Scribner's Magazine, April, 1899,
pp. 435-436), Colonel Roosevelt pubHshed the fol-
lowing:

"On the hill-slope immediately around me I had

A NEW CENTURY 53

a mixed force composed of members of most of
the cavalry regiments, and a few infantrymen.
There was about fifty of my Rough Riders, with
Lieutenants Goodrich and Carr. Among the rest
were perhaps a score of colored infantrymen, but,
as it happened, at this particular point, without
any of their ofificers. No troops could have be-
haved better than the colored soldiers had behaved
so far; but they are, of course, peculiarly dependent
upon their white officers. Occasionally they pro-
duce non-commissioned officers who can take the
initiative and accept responsibility precisely like
the best class of whites; but this cannot be expected
normally, nor is it fair to expect it. With the col-
ored troops there should always be some of their
own officers; whereas, with the white regulars, as
with my own Rough Riders, experience showed
that the non-commissioned officers could usually
carry on the fight by themselves if they were once
started, no matter whether their officers were killed
or not.

H( ^ :{: :|e

''None of the white regulars or Rough Riders
showed the slightest sign of weakening; but under
the strain the colored infantrymen (who had none
of their officers) began to get a little uneasy and
to drift to the rear, either helping wounded men,
or saying that they wished to find their own regi-
ments. This I could not allow, as it was depleting
my line, so I jumped up, and, walking a few yards
to the rear, drew my revolver, halted the retreating
soldiers, and called out to them that I appreciated
the gallantry with which they had fought and
would be sorry to hurt them, but that I should

54 A NEW NEGRO FOR

shoot the first man who, on any pretense what-
ever, went to the rear. My own men had all sat
up and were watching my movements with the
utmost interest; so was Captain Howze. I ended
my statement to the colored soldiers by saying:
'Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you
don't know whether or not I will keep my word,
but my men can tell you that I always do;' where-
upon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners sol-
emnly nodded their heads and commented in
chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, 'He always
does; he ahvays does.' This ended the trouble."

This makes very nice reading, but it is not his-
tory, in which it is always hazardous to sacrifice
truth "to make a period round." It is therefore
fortunate that one of the Afro-Americans who
was with Colonel Roosevelt at the time and knows
all about the scandalous incident he relates should
write a correction of the Rough Rider's statements.
Sergeant Presley Holliday, Troop B, Tenth Cav-
alry, says (New York Age, May ii, 1899):

'Tn the beginning I wish to say that from what
I saw of Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba and the im-
pression his frank countenance made on me, I
cannot believe that he made the statement ma-
liciously. I believe the Colonel thought he spoke
the exact truth. But did he know that of the four
officers connected with two certain troops of the
Tenth Cavalry one was killed and three were so
seriously wounded as to cause them to be carried
from the field and the command of these tw^o troops
fell to their first sergeants, who led them triumph-
antly to the front? Does he know that both at La
Guasimas and at San Juan Hill, the greater part of

ALEXANDER MILES,

One of the Founders of the City of Duluth. Minnesota; Suc-
cessful Business Man; Head of The United Broth-
erhood, the First Fraternal Insurance ComDanv
to Be Organized Among Colored People.

56 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Troop B of the Tenth Cavalry was separated from
its commanding officer by the accidents of battle
and was led to the front by its first sergeant?

''When we reached the enemy's works on San
Juan Hill our organizations were very badly mixed,
few company commanders having their whole com-
panies or none of somebody else's company. As
it was, Captain Watson, my troop commander,
reached the crest of the hill with about eight or ten
men of his troop, all the rest having been acci-
dentally separated from him by the thick under-
brush during the advance, and being at that time,
as was subsequently shown, on the firing line un-
der some one else, pushing to the front. We kept
up the forward movement and finally halted on
the heights overlooking Santiago, where Colonel
Roosevelt, with a very thin line, had preceded us,
and was holding the hill. Here Captain Watson
told us to remain while he went to another part of
the line to look for the rest of his troop. He did
not come to that part of the field again.

'The Colonel made a slight error when he said
his mixed comm.and contained some colored in-
fantry. All the colored troops in that command
were cavalrymen. His command consisted mostly
of Rough Riders, with an aggregate of about one
troop of the Tenth Cavalry, a few of the Ninth
and a few of the First Regular Cavalry, with a half-
dozen officers. Every few minutes brought men
from the rear, everybody seeming to be anxious to
get to the firing line. For a while we kept up a
desultory fire, but as we could not locate the enemy
(which all the time kept up a hot fire on our posi-
tion), we became disgusted and lay down and kept

A NEW CENTURY 57

silent. Private Marshall was here seriously
wounded while standing in plain view of the en-
emy trying to point them out to his comrades.

'There were frequent calls for men to carry the
wounded to the rear, to go for ammunition, and
as night came on, to go for rations and entrench-
ing tools. A few colored soldiers volunteered, as
did some from the Rough Riders. It then hap-
pened that two men of the Tenth were ordered to
the rear by Lieutenant Fleming, Tenth Cavalry,
who was then present with part of his troop, for
the purpose of bringing either rations or entrench-
ing tools, and Colonel Roosevelt, seeing so many
men going to the rear, shouted to them to come
back, jumped up and drew his revolver, and told
the men of the Tenth that he would shoot the first
man who attempted to shirk duty by going to the
rear, that he had orders to hold that Hne and
he would do so if he had to shoot every man
there to do it. His own men immediately
informed him that 'you w^on't have to shoot
those men, Colonel. We know those boys.'
He was also assured by Lieutenant Flemming
of the Tenth that he would have no trouble
keeping them there, and some of our men shouted,
in which I joined, that 'we will stay with you.
Colonel.' Everyone who saw the incident knew
the Colonel was mistaken about our men trying
to shirk duty, but well knew that he could not ad-
mit of any heavy detail from his command, so no
one thought ill of the matter. Inasmuch as the
Colonel came to the line of the Tenth the next day
and told the men of his threat to shoot some of
their members and, as he expressed it, he had seen

58 A NEW NEGRO FOR

his mistake and found them to be far different men
from what he supposed, I thought he was suffi-
ciently conscious of his error not to make so un-
grateful a statement about us at a time when the
nation is about to recognize our past service.

''Had the Colonel desired to note the fact he
would have seen that when orders came the next
day to relieve the detachment of the Tenth from
that part of the field, he commanded just as many
colored men at that time as he commanded at any
other time during the twenty-four hours we were
under his command, although colored as well as
white soldiers were going and coming all day, and
they knew perfectly well where the Tenth Cavalry
was posted, and that it was on a line about four
hundred yards further from the enemy than Col-
onel Roosevelt's line. Still when they obtained
permission to go to the rear they almost invariably
came back to the same position. Two men of my
troop were wounded while at the rear for water and
taken to the hospital and, of course, could not come
back.

"Our men always made it a rule to join the near-
est command when separated from our own, and
those who had been so unfortunate as to lose their
way altogether were, both colored and white, strag-
gling up from the time the line was established until
far into the night, showing their determination to
reach the front.

'Tn explaining the desire of our men to go back
to look for their comrades it should be stated
that from the contour of the ground the Rough
Riders were so much in advance of the Tenth Cav-
alry that to reach the latter regiment from the

A NEW CENTURY 59

former one had really to go straight to the rear and
then turn sharply to the right; and further, it is a
well-known fact in this country most persons of
color feel out of place when they are by force com-
pelled to mingle with white persons, especially
strangers, and although we knew we were doing
our duty and would be treated well as long as we
stood to the front and fought, unfortunately some
of our men (and these w^ere all recruits with less
than six months' service) felt so much out of place
that when the firing lulled often showed their de-
sire to be with their commands. None of our
older men did this. We knew perfectly well that
we could give as much assistance there as any-
where else and that it was our duty to remain until
relieved. And we did. White soldiers do not, as
a rule, share this feeling with colored soldiers. The
fact that a white man knows how well he can make
a place for himself among colored people need not
be discussed here.

^'1 remember an incident of a recruit of my troop
with less than two months' service who had come
up to our position during the evening of the ist,
having been separated from the troop during the
attack on San Juan Hill. The next morning before
the firing began, having seen an ofHcer of the Tenth
who had been sent to Colonel Roosevelt with a
message, returning to the regiment, he signified
his intention of going back with him, saying he
could thus find the regiment. I remonstrated wdth
him without avail and was only able to keep him
from going by informing him of the Colonel's
threat of the day before. There was no desire on
the part of this soldier to shirk duty. He simply

6o A NEW NEGRO FOR

didn't know that he should not leave any part of
the firing Hne without orders. Later, while lying
in reserve behind the firing Hne, I had to use as
much persuasion to keep him from firing over the
heads of his enemies as I had to keep him with us.
He remained with us until he was shot in the
shoulder and had to be sent to the rear.

''I could give many other incidents of our men'q
devotion to duty, of their determination to stay
until the death, but what's the use? Colonel Roose-
velt has said they shirked, and the reading public
will take the Colonel at his word and go on think-
ing they shirked. His statement was uncalled for
and uncharitable, and considering the moral and
physical effect the advance of the Tenth Cavalry
had in weakening the forces opposed to the Col-
onel's regiment both at Las Guasimas and San
Juan Hill, altogether ungrateful, and has done us
an immeasurable lot of harm.

"And, further, as to our lack of qualifications for
command, I will say that when our soldiers who
can and will write history sever their connections
with the regular army and thus release themselves
from their voluntary status of military lockjaw and
tell what they saw, those who now preach that the
negro is not fit to exercise command over troops
and will go no further than he is led by white
officers, will see in print held up for public gaze,
much to their chargin, tales of those Cuban bat-
tles that have never been told outside the tent and
the barrack room, tales that it will not be agree-
able for some of them to hear. The public will then
learn that not every troop or company of colored
soldiers who took part in the assaults on San Juan

HON. J. FRANK WHEATON,

Lawyer and First Colored Man to Be Honored by Election

to the State Legislature of Minnesota.

62 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Hill or El Caney was led or urgtd forward by its
white officer.

**It is unfortunate that we had no colored officers
in that campaign, and this thing of white officers
for colored troops is exasperating, and I join with
The Age in saying our motto for the future must
be: 'Colored officers or no colored soldiers/ "

So much for Colonel Roosevelt's statements.

First Sergeant M. W. Sadler, Company D,
Twenty-fifth Infantry, furnished the following
graphic account to the New York Age of the part
his regiment had in the capture of El Caney:

"Santiago de Cuba, July 30. — I wish to call at-
tention to the heroic part the Twenty-fifth United
State Infantry played in compelling the surrender
of Santiago. We have no reporter in our division
and it appears that <we are coming up unrepre-
sented.

"On the morning of July i our regiment, after
having slept a part of the night with stones for
pillows and heads resting on hands, arose at the
dawn of .day, without a morsel to eat, formed line,
and after a half-day of hard marching succeeded in
reaching the bloody battleground of El Caney.
We were in the last brigade of our division. As
we were marching up we met regiments of our
comrades in white retreating from the Spanish
stronghold. As we pressed forward all the reply
that came from the retiring soldiers was: There
is no use to advance further! The Spaniards are
intrenched and in blockhouses. You are running
to sudden death.' But without a falter did our
brave men continue to press to the front.

"In a few moments the desired position was

A NEW CENTURY 63

reached. The first- battahon of the Twenty-fifth
Infantry, composed of Companies C, D, G and H,
were ordered to form the firing fine, in preference
to other regiments, though their commanders were
senior to ours. But no sooner w^as the command
given than the execution began. A thousand yards
distant to the north lay the enemy, 2,000 strong,
in intrenchments hewn out of soUd stone. On each
end of the breastwork were stone blockhouses.
Our regiment numbered 507 men all told. We
advanced about 200 yards, under cover of jungles
and ravines. Then came the trying moments. The
clear battlefield was reached. The enemy began
showering down on us volleys from their strong
fortifications and numberless sharpshooters hid
away in palm trees and other places of conceal-
ment. Our men began to fall, many of them never
to rise again, but so steady was the advance and
so effective was our fire that the Spaniards became
unnerved and began over-shooting us. When they
saw we were 'colored soldiers' they kne\v their
doom was sealed. They were afraid to put their
heads above the brink of the intrenchments, for
every time a head was raised there was one Span-
iard less.

"The advance was continued until we were with-
in about 150 yards of the intrenchments; then came
the solemn command, 'Charge.' Every man was
up and rushing forward at headlong speed over the
barbed wire and into the intrenchments, and the
Twenty-fifth carried the much-coveted position.

"Our losses were as follows: Company A —
Wounded, Sergeant Stephen H. Brown, Private
W^illiam Clark. Company B — Killed, Private

64 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

French Payne; wounded, Private Thomas Browtl.
Company C — Wounded, Privates Joseph L. John-
son, Samuel W. Holley, John H. Boyd. Company
I>— Killed, Privates Tom Howe, John B. Phelps>
John W. Steele; wounded, Sergeant Hayden Rich-
ards, Privates Robert Goodwin, Andrew Smith.
Company E — »Wounded, Privates Hugh Swann,
David Gilligin, John Sadler and James Howard.
Company F — Wounded, First Sergeant Frank
Coleman, Private William Lafayette. Company G
— Killed, Private Aaron Leftwich; wounded. Pri-
vates Alvin Daniels, Benjamin Douglass, George P.
Cooper and John Thomas. Company H — ^Killed,
Corporal Benjamin Cousins, Private Albert
Strothers; wounded, Henry Gilbert, William Bevels
and Edward Foreman. Officers — Killed, Second
Lieutenant H. L. McCorkle; wounded. Captain
Eaton A. Edwards, Lieutenants Kennison and
Murdock.

"So great was the loss of officers that Company
C had to be commanded by its first sergeant, S.
W. Taliaferro, the gallant aspirant for a commis-
sion from the ranks, the facts of which are yet
fresh in the minds of reading Afro-Americans. The
company's commander was wounded early in the
action by the explosion of a bombshell.

'Thus our people can now see that the coolness
and bravery that characterized our fathers in the
6o's have been handed down to their sons in the
90's. If any one doubts the fitness of a colored sol-
dier for active field service, when the cry of mus-
ketry, thebooming of cannons and bursting of shells
seem to make the earth tremble, ask the regimental
commande*-s of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-

H. T. KEALING, A. M.,
Edncator and Editor of the A. M. E. Review, Philadel-
phia, Pa.

66 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

fifth Infantries, and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalries;
ask Generals Kent and Wheeler, of whose divisions
these regiments formed a part.

'The Spaniards call ns 'Xegeretter Soldados/
and say there is no use shooting at us, for steel
and powder will not stop us. Wt only hope that
our brethren will come over and help us to show
to the world that trtie patriotism is in the minds of
the sons of Ham. All we need is leaders of our
own race to make war records, so that their names
may go down in history as a reward for the price
of our precious blood."

Sergeant-Major Benjamin F. Sayre, Company
C, Twenty-fourth Infantry, furnished in a letter to
a friend the following pen picture of the part his
regiment took in capturing the San Juan Heights:

"Siboney, Cuba, July 19, 1898. — The war is
ended, at least in these parts; we possess the
ancient and beautiful city of Santiago. Our flag
was raised with impressive ceremonies, bands play-
ing and cannons booming on the plaza of the city
yesterday. The Spanish soldiery are bivouacked
under guard behind the intrenchments, Avhere a
few days ago we were crouching, engaged in a
stubborn and sanguinary struggle with them. The
Cubans are pouring in from their retreats and shel-
ters in the mountains by thousands, whole families
whose only subsistence for months has been man-
groves, roots, land crabs, etc., emaciated, pale and
wan, but with their eyes glowing with a new light
of hope, their faces illumined with hope and thanks-
giving for the new era of life, freedom and prosper-
ity for their beloved isle.

'The Twenty-fourth Regiment has made a rec-

A NEW CENTURY 67

ord for itself that will live as long as the world lasts.
It was our regiment that took the fortified ridge
of San Juan, the last stronghold of the enemy,
before Santiago, after the Ninth and Thirteenth
had been repulsed and were retreating. Seven of
our officers were laid low and thirteen of our non-
commissioned officers before we had gone one
hundred yards after fording the river; but we went
right at them with a yell, every man shooting
straight to kill. The steady advance of the black
troops under their withering fire nonplussed the
enemy; they became panic-stricken and leaping
out of their entrenchments fied shamefully. In a
few minutes we were on the heights firing down
on them as they ran and dodged about among the
trees and high grass. The hill-top, blockhouse and
trenches were literally filled wuth their dead and
wounded, some of them shot to pieces. Every-
wdiere the name of the Twenty-fourth Regiment is
en everyone's lips. Soldiers and Cubans alike vie
with each other in doing honor to any Twenty-
fourth man whenever they meet one.

"The men were relieved two days ago and
marched to the little seaside village of Siboney,
where the hospitals are, and here we witnessed all
the pathetic aftermath that is the sequel of every
battle and the poor unfortunate victims of man's
inhumanity to man. The first report was 200 killed
on our side and 1,300 wounded and missing. ^ The
death-rate has increased by an averaee of six or
eight every day since. Men are dying off like
sheep, for the fever has broken out among them,
and if they do not get our troops a^way pretty
quick hundreds will die. No one knows who will

68 A NEW NEGRO FOR

be next to go. Every precaution has been taken;
every old building has been burned to the ground,
our drinking water is boiled, and every article of
bedding and wearing apparel thoroughly aired and
sunned all day when the skies are not pouring
down floods of water. Notwithstanding, men are
falling down as if struck on the head with a sledge
hammer, who a few minutes before were apparently
in the best of health, and every morning a silent
squad of men go out to dig three or four graves.
The spread of canvas for our hospitals alone covers
the area of a small city, and, besides this place,
there is another five miles down the coast and a
steamship moored out in the sea, while hundreds
of wounded men have been shipped to Atlanta,
Ga., and New York City. War is a terrible expedi-
ent, and it is only those who have not experienced
it who would urge it on two nations, unless every
other possible method of adjustment had been
resorted to without avail.

''After all, I am glad I had a hand in it; that
charge was magnificent and I would not exchange
that thrill of exultation which I felt when I reached
the crust of that volcano of rifle pits among the first
of my comrades and raised a shout at the fleeing
Spaniards for any consideration. I was detailed
to go in search of the colors, which I succeeded
in recovering, although, at times, I found myself
in unpleasant proximity to the whistling of Mauser
bullets. It was a dangerous tour along the fighting
line, for which service I was highly complimented
and promoted to the rank of sergeant-major."

After remaining forty days in the trenches and
in the field, the Twenty-fourth Infantry was or-

S. LAING WILLIAMS, A. B. AND M. L.,

Is an Alumnus of the University of Alichigan and Columbian
Law School, and Member of the Chicago Bar.

70 A NEW NEGRO FOR

dcred to Siboney, where the yellow fever had
broken out among the volunteer troops, July 15,
for hospital service. On reaching Siboney, the
following day, the regiment (numbering 15 officers
and 456 men) was requested to furnish 65 men to
do service at the pest camp. Volunteers were called
for. "This was the crucial test," says Major A. C.
Markley, Twenty-fourth Infantry, commanding,
(Major-General's Report, pp. 450, 451, 452, 453)
"of the mettle of the men and an anxious moment,
indeed. In preparation for it an interview had been
had with Captain A. A. Augur, commanding Com-
pany H, a man of high and strong character, and
a course of action decided on. Captain Augur then
explained matters to his men and called for volun-
teers for the pest camp. Fifteen gallant felloiws
responded from his company, and this fine example
soon produced more than were needed for all pur-
poses."

Thus, in the field, in the camp, and in the hos-
pital, facing Mauser bullets, or what not, and Yel-
low Jack, the deadliest of foes, these black troopers,
Americans all and true, without the incentive of
ever being promoted beyond a non-commissioned
officers rank, acquitted themselves as heroes, as
all men should who are citizens of our grand but not
always just Republic. A few of these brave men
were promoted to be second lieutenants* and as-

* Six colored non-commissioned officers who rendered
particularly gallant and meritorious services in the face of
the enemy in the actions around Santiago on the ist and 2d
inst. were appointed second lieutenants in the tvvo colored
immune regiments organized under special act of Congress.
These men are Sergeants William Washington, Troop F,
and John C. Proctor, Troop I, of the Ninlli Cavalry, and

A NEW CENTURY • 71

signed to immune regiments, but all of them have
now been mustered out of the service — turned out
on the cold world in their old age and with their
honors full upon them, as not good enough to be
officers in the regular army of the Republic!

All honor to the heroic brave who fought and
still live! And to the heroic dead, ''they are resting
well," may they have not died in vain.

Sergeants William McBryar, Company H; Wyatt Hoffman,
Company G; Macon Russell, Company H, and Andrew
J. Smith. Company B, of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, com-
manded by Colonel Daggett. These two regiments were
in the thick of the fiercest fighting at El Caney and San
Juan and won high praise for their courage and ef^ciency.
The Ninth Cavalry was also with the Rough Riders at Las
Guasimas.

CHAPTER V.

THE PEACE TREATY.

It was a long time before the American people
could bring themselves to the point of interfering
in the domestic afTairs of a friendly power, a step at
which all nations, for obvious reasons, hesitate.
The long-continued abuse of Spanish rule in Cuba,
which had become a scandal to Christendom, how-
ever, at last became so intolerable that they could
no longer be excused and endured without a stig-
ma attaching to the honor and humanity of the
American Republic. When the national conscience
had reached this conclusion, in February,- 1896,
Congress passed a resolution recognizing a con-
dition of war between Spain and Cuba, and the
friendly offices of the United States were offered
to Spain for the recognition of Cuban indepen-
dence. But nothing in the interest of peace had
been accomplished, the public mind of both nations
had been further exasperated, up to February 15,
1898, when the warship Maine, on a friendly visit,
was destroyed in the harbor of Havana, whether
by accident or connivance of the Spanish authori-
ties has never been determined. In the explosion
266 of the crew of the Maine lost their lives. This
catastrophe was so appalling as to make war inevit-
able. The joint resolution declaring war between
the United States and Spain was passed by Con-
gress April 13 and was signed by President Mc-

T. THOMAS FORTUNE,

Editor of the New York Age, and Brilliant Politiciai?

Author and Speaker.

74 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Kinley April 20, 1898, at 11:24 o'clock A. M.,
and Spain followed suit April 24. May i Admiral
Dewey destroyed the Spanish Asiatic fleet in the
harbor of Manila. The American army of invasion,
16,000 strong, under Major-General W. R. Shafter,
landed at Baiquira June 20-22, and began to move
at once on Santiago, where the enemy was in-
trenched in force. Admiral Cervera's fleet, in
attempting to escape from the harbor of Santiago,
was destroyed, July 3, by the American fleet. On
the same day General Shafter, having fought his
way, without one repulse, to the gates of Santiago,
demanded the surrender of that stronghold. July
28, General Nelson A. Miles, heading the American
army of invasion, landed at Guanica, Porto Rico.

The Spanish Government, through the French
Ambassador, M. Cambon, asked for terms of peace,
which were submitted by the President, July 30,
and were formally accepted by Spain August 9, the
peace protocol being signed, armistice proclaimed
and the blockade of Cuba raised August 12.
August 13 Manila surrendered to the Americans.

SeptemlDer 9 the following Peace Commission on
the part of the United States was announced:
William R. Day, of Ohio, ex-Secretary of State;
Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota, United States
Senator; George Gray, of Delaware, United States
Senator; Whitelaw Reid, of New York. On the
part of Spain: Eugene Montero Rios, President
of the Senate; Beunaventura Abarzuza; M. W. Z.
de Villaurrutia; General R. Cerero; M. J. de Gar-
cia. The American commission sailed for France
September 17, and the conferences of the Joint
Commission began in Paris, October i. The treaty.

A NEW CENTURY 75

of peace was signed at Paris, December lo, at 8:45
o'clock P. M.

The following is a synopsis of the Treaty of
Paris:

Article i provides for the relinquishment of
Cuba.

Article 2 provides for the cession of Porto Rico.

Article 3 provides for the cession of the Philip-
pines for $20,000,000 as compensation.

Article 4 embraces the plans for the cessicn cf
the Philippines, including the return of Spanish
prisoners in the hands of the Tagalos.

Article 5 deals with the cession of barracks, w-ar
materials, arms, stores, buildings, and all property
appertaining to the Spanish administration in the
Philippines.

Article 6 is a renunciation by both nations of
their respective claims against each other and the
citizens of each other.

Article 7 grants to Spanish trade and shipping in
the Philippines the same treatment as American
trade and shipping for a period of ten years.

Article 8 provides for the release of all prisoners
of war held by Spain and of all prisoners held by her
for political offences committed in the colonies
acquired by the United States.

Article 9 guarantees the legal rights of Spaniards
remaining in Cuba.

Article 10 establishes religious freedom in the
Philippines and guarantees to all churches equal
rights..

Article 11 provides for the compensation of
courts and other tribunals in Porto Rico and
Cuba.

^(> 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

Article 12 provides for the administration of jus-
tice in Porto Rico and Cuba.

Article 13 provides for the continuance for five
years of Spanish copyrights in the ceded territories,
giving Spanish books admittance free of duty.

Article 14 provides for the establishment oi con-
sulates by Spain in the ceded territories.

Article 15 grants to Spanish commerce in Cuba,
Porto Rico and the Philippines the same treatment
as to American for ten years, Spanish shipping to
be treated as coasting vessels.

Article 16 stipulates that the obligations of the
United States to Spanish citizens and property in
Cuba shall terminate with the withdrawal of the
United States authorities from the island.

Article 17 provides that the treaty must be rati-
fied within six months from the date of signing
by the respective Governments in order to be bind-
ing.

Under the supervision of the Evacuation Com-
missioners, the removal of the Spanish troops from
Cuba and Porto Rico began immediately after the
arrival of the American commissioners in those isl-
ands. The complete evacution of Porto Rico was
accomplished by October 17, and on October 18
the United States flag was hoisted at San Juan and
the United States came into formal possession of
the island.

The evacuation of Cuba by the Spaniards was
begun in December, 1898.

President McKinley issued a proclamation April
II, 1899, ratifying the work of the commission.
And thus ended the rule of Spain in North Amer-
ica, which her sailors had discovered and which

EDWARD WILSON,

Graduate of Williams College, and Successful Member of the

Chicago Bar.

s >

78 A NEW NEGRO FOR

her chivalric and adventurous soldiers did so much
to conquer. She went into the war with great
pride and confidence; she emerged from it with
her navy destroyed; her army discredited and her
West Indian and Asiatic colonies forever lost to
her! "O what a fall was there!"

CHAPTER VI.
AFRO-AMERICAN EDUCATION.

That the age of prophecy, like that of chivalry,
has passed away was never more signally shown
than in the utter breaking down of all the predic-
tions that followed the Afro-American people out
of the house of bondage into the home, the church
and the school-house of freedom. It was con-
fidently predicted by his enemies that he was in-
capable of mastering the common rudiments of
education, and the idea that he could master the
higher education was laughed out of court. When
the war came to a close in 1865 a large portion
of the American people regarded the Afro-Amer-
ican people "as less than man, yet more than
brute." They had no faith in the possibility of
his mental or moral regeneration.

And yet, in those early days when the race was
enslaved, there appeared among them men of great
piety and learning, who devoted themselves, where
they were allowed to do so, to the education of
such of their fellows as were classed as ''free ne-
groes." Such pioneers in the work of education
were Rev. Daniel Alexander Payne of South Caro-
lina, Rev. J. W. Hood of North Carolina, Rev.
John Peterson of New York, George B. Vashin
of Missouri — men who illustrated in their lives and
work those higher virtues of capacity, industry,
devotion to race, which were to have such a

8o A NEW NEGRO FOR

splendid army of emulators in the after years and
under more favoring conditions.

No sufficient tribute has ever been paid to Gen-
eral O. O. Howard, who laid the foundation of
the Afro-American educational work while he had
charge of the important work of the Freedman's
Bureau. It is meet that General Samuel Chapman
Armstrong, the founder of the Hampton Normal
and Agricultural Institute, should pay him such a
tribute. General Armstrong said:

"General Howard and the Freedmen's Bureau
did for the ex-slaves, from 1865 to 1870, a mar-
velous work, for which due credit has not been
given; among other things, giving to their edu-
cation an impulse and a foundation, by granting
three and a half milHons of dollars for school-
houses, salaries, etc., promoting the education of
about a million colored children. The principal
negro educational institutions of to-day, then start-
ing, were liberally aided, at a time of vital need.
Hampton received over $50,000 throueh General
Howard for building and improvements."

But it is not alone in the money expended by
General Howard as the representative of the Gov-
ernment in the direction indicated by General Arm-
strong are we indebted to this great soldier and
philanthropist; out of his private purse he founded
Howard University at the capital of the nation and
endowed it with a princely domain, which must
to-day be worth $5,000,000 in the open market.
It was through no fault of General Howard's that
this endowment was scattered to the w'inds.

General Armstrong was also one of the pioneers
in this educational work, having been placed by

DR. DANIEL H. WILLIAMS,
Chicago, 111., Founder of Provident Hospital and Training
School, Chicago; Appointed by President Cleveland as
Surgecn-in-Chief of the Great Freedman's Hos-
pital, Washington, D. C. By his profession
he has amassed a large fortune; as
Physician and Surgeon he has
few equals of any race
or country.

82 A NEW NEGRO FOR

General Howard, Commissioner of the Freedman's
Bureau, in charge of ten counties in Eastern Vir-
ginia, with headquarters at Hampton, the great
''contraband" camp, ''to manage negro affairs and
to adjust, if possible, the relations of the races."
How the Hampton work, one of the best and
strongest, was planted, is best told in the language
of General Armstrong himself:

"On relieving my 'predecessor. Captain C. B.
Wilder, of Boston, at the Hampton headquarters,
I found an active, excellent educational work go-
ing on under the American Missionary Associa-
tion of New York, which, in 1862, had opened, in
the vicinity, the first school for freedmen in the
South, in charge of an ex-slave, Mrs. Mary Peake.
Over 1,500 children were gathering daily; some
in old hospital barracks — for here was Camp Ham-
ilton, the base hospital of the Army of the James,
where, during the war, thousands of sick and
wounded soldiers had been cared for, and where
now over 6,000 lie buried in a beautiful national
cemetery. The largest class was in the 'Butler
School' building, since replaced by the 'John G.
Whittier school-house.'

"Close at hand the pioneer settlers of America
and the first slaves landed on this continent;
here Powhatan reigned; here the Indian child
was baptized; here freedom was first given the
slave by General Butler's 'contraband' order; in
sight of this shore the battle of the Merrimac and
Monitor saved the Union and revolutionized naval
warfare; here General Grant based the operations
of his final campaign. * * *

"I soon felt the fitness of this historic and

A NEW CENTURY ^3

strategic spot for a permanent and great educa-
tional work. The suggestion was cordially re-
ceived by the American Missionary Association,
which authorized the purchase, in June, 1867, of
'Little Scotland,' and estate of 125 ac;es (since
increased to 190), on Hampton River, looking out
over Hampton Roads. Not expecting to have
charge, but only to help, I was surprised one day
by a letter from Secretary E. P. Smith of the A.
M. A., stating that the man selected for the place
had declined, and asking me if I could take it. I
replied 'Yes.' Till then my own future had been
blind; it had only been clear that there was a work
to do for the ex-slaves, and where and how it should
be done.

"A day-dream of the Hampton school nearly as
it is had come to me during the war a few times;
once in camp during the siege of Richmond, and
once one beautiful evening on the Gulf of Mexico,
while on the wheel-house of the transport steam-
ship Illinois en route for Texas with the Twenty-
fifth Army (negro) Corps, for frontier duty on
the Rio Grande River, whither it had been ordered,
under General Sheridan, to watch and if necessary
defeat Maximilian in his attempted conquest of
Mexico.

'The thing to be done was clear: To train se-
lected negro vouth who should go out at once and
teach and lead their people, first by example, by
getting land and homes; to give them not a dollar
that they could not earn for themselves; to teach
respect for labor; to replace stupid drudgery with
skilled hands; and, to these ends, to build up an
industrial system, for the sake not only of self-

84 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

support and intelligent labor, but also for the sake
of character. And it seemed equally clear that the
people of the country would support a wise work
for the freedmen. I think so still."

They have done it. From the small seed planted
at Hampton, and as an outgrowth of the work of
the Freedman's Bureau, schools of elementary and
higher education rapidly sprang up in every State.
The enthusiasm with which these schools were
filled, not only by the young, but by the adults,
astonished not only the people of the North, but
those of the South. Many who watched the phe-
nomenon, and who had their doubts about the
capacity of the Afro-American people to receive
mental discipline and to continue in well doing, said
that when the novelty should wear off these school-
houses would be emptied of their eager disciples.
But they were not. Each succeeding year has seen
the grand army of school children grow larger and
larger and more earnest in enthusiasm; and the
numerous academies, seminaries, institutes and col-
leges have been and are overcrowded.

In the early stages of the work there were very
few Afro-Americans competent to teach and there
were no funds to carry on the work, as the common
school system in the Southern States had not been
inaugurated; it was to come later, after the work
of foundation-laying had been done under the in-
spiration of the Freedman's Bureau and the organ-
ized missionary associations of the North. But
where were the teachers to come from? Unfor-
tunately, I think, as events have demonstrated, the
whites were indisposed to undertake this neces-
sary work, and were in many instances hostile to

PROF. W. E. B. DUBOIS,
Sociologist and Writer, Atlanta, Ga.

86 A NEW NEGRO FOR

those who did do it. There are few brighter pages
in the missionary history of the world than that
which records the readiness and wilHngness with
which the white men and women of the Northern
States went into the South, into its large cities
and its waste places, and labored year in and year
out, to lay the foundation of the Afro-American's
religious' and educational character, and the un-
paralleled financial support which was given them,
and is continued to this day, by the philanthropic
people of the North. It is estiniated that in the
maintenance of the educational work among the
Afro-American people of the South the philanthro-
pists of the North, directly and through organized
associations like the American Missionary Associa-
tion and the Peabody Fund, have expended annu-
ally an average of one million dollars since 1867,
making a grand total of $32,000,000. Fully a hun-
dred colleges, institutes, and the like have been
established and maintained, and are to-day doing
a marvelous work. A majority of these schools
have white management, but all of them are repre-
sented in their faculties by their graduates. A
great many of them are managed in all their de-
partments by Afro-Americans.

As has been said, these schools of higher learn-
ing are maintained, for the most part, by the or-
ganized charities and individual philanthropists of
the North. There are two funds set apart for this
^^ork, besides the Peabody Fund, of which the
whites receive a large share — the John F. Slater
Fund and the Hand Fund, of a million dollars each,
the income of which is applied to helping these
Afro- American schools.

PROF. W. H. COUNCILL,
President Agricultural and Mechanical College, Normal, Ala.

88 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

Mention should be made here of the fact that
Hon. Jonathan C. Gibbs, one of the first Afro-
American graduates of Dartmouth College, was one
of the State Superintendents of Education of Flor-
ida in the Reconstruction era, and died while hold-
ing that position. His son, Hon. Thomas V. Gibbs,
died in 1898, after having done much as its secre-
tary and treasurer, in connection with President
T. DeS. Tucker, to place the State Normal and
Agricultural College, at Tallahassee on a prosper-
ous foundation.

With the inauguration of the public school sys-
tem in the Southern States the voluntary schools
were gradually absorbed and their Northern teach-
ers displaced by those they had prepared. The
extent and importance of their work may be judg^ed
by the fact that when they entered the field in
1866-7 there were comparatively few Afro- Amer-
ican teachers in the South, whereas to-day there
are no fewer than 25,000 employed in the public
schools. Baltimore, I believe, is the only Southern
city in which white teachers are now employed in
these schools. Any unbiased person must admit
that this is not only a creditable but a remarkable
showing, one alike creditable to the race and to
those who lavished upon it time and money to ef-
fect it.

Most of the Southern States maintain normal
and agricultural schools for the education of
Afro-American youths. Alabama not only does
this, but makes a generous appropriation for the
work of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Insti-
tute. Prof. Richard R. Wright, president of the
State Normal College^ at College, Ga., is perhaps

PROF. W. S. SCARABOROUGH, A. M., LL. D., PH. D.,

Vice-President Wilberforce University. Has written a Greek

Grammar, and many treatises on Greek. Is also

a member of seven Educational Societies.

90 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the best known of the presidents of these State
institutions. The one in North CaroHna, presided
over by James B. Dudley, at Greensboro, also has a
good reputation. In South Carolina, ex-Congress-
man Thomas E. Miller has charge of the State
School at Orangeburoh. A very excellent work
is being done by Prof. S. G. Atkins, at the Slater
Academy, at Winston, N. C, one of the few schools
of its kind in the South supported in large part
by the native whites.

The African Methodist Episcopal and the Afri-
can Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches maintain
a large number of schools. The main school of
the former is located at Wilberforce, Ohio, with
S. T. Mitchell as president. Prof. W. S. Scar-
borough, who has written a Greek grammar and
many treatises on Greek subjects, is connected
with the school — Will^erfore University. The main
school the latter is located at Salisbury, N. C, W.
H. Goler being president. The school was built
up in its earlier stages by Rev. Joseph C. Price,
who had the reputation in his lifetime of being-
one of the most eloquent men in the Republic.
The Baptist denomination also maintains a large
number of schools.

Among the schools of higher learning which
have an assured standing may be mentioned Lin-
coln University, in Chester County, Pa.; Howard
University, Washington, D. C; Shaw University,
Raleigh, N. C; Claflin University, Orangeburgii,
S. C; Atlanta and Clark Universities, Morris
Brown College, Gammon Theological Seminary and
Spelman Seminary, all of Atlanta; Fisk, Roger
Williams and Central Tennessee Collesfes at Nash-

PROF. HIRAM E. ARCHER, M. S.,
Director o: the Department of Science and Assistant Prin-
cipal in the Agricnlttiral and Mechanical Col-
lege. Nrnnal, Alabama.

92 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ville, Tenn.; Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn.;
Berea College, where both races are educated, at
Berea, Ky.

Among the normal and industrial schools Hamp-
ton Institute and its offspring, the Tuskegee Insti-
tute, at Tuskegee, Ala., head the list; the Calhoun
School at Calhoun, Ala.; the INIt. Meigs School, at
i\It. Meigs, Ala.; the Gloucester School, at Glou-
cester, Va., with the State industrial schools in most
of the Southern States.

The educational work in the Southern States is
accomplishing wonders in the moral and intellec-
tual uplift of the people, which has already been felt
in the life of the South, and must be felt in larger
measure in the years to come. There has been a
marked tendency of late years to make the educa-
tion conform more to the industrial lines laid by
General Armstrong. This is a healthy sign, as the
more practical education is the better, especially as
the tendency of modern industrialism is more and
more towards specialization in all departments of
learning and activity of whatever sort; and this is
said without intending in the least to depreciate
or underrate what is regarded as the higher edu-
cation. All education is good, but assuredly that
is the best which enables a man to fit in most readi-
ly with the conditions of life in which he finds him-
self.

CHAPTER VII.

SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES.

The first African slaves were brought to the
New World in the year 1565, in the English ship
"Jesus," commanded by Sir John Hawkins, under
the patronage of "Good Queen Bess." Thus we
find that exactly three hundred years from the
landing of this first cargo of two hundred and fifty
chained slaves at St. Domingo, our martyred
President went to his God bearing the shackles
of four million freedmen.

The demand for these slaves grew out of the
fact that Spanish cruelty had exterminated the in-
offensive Indians found on the islands, and it was
found necessary to have Negro slaves to cultivate
the plantations.

The hearty sons of Africa not only survived the
oppressive cruelty of their heartless task-masters,
but in time they rebelled against them, and under
their invincible "Black Prince," Toussaint, killed
them in battle or drove them from the island.
Thus, as Bancroft well says, "Hayti, the first
spot in America that received African Slaves,
was the first to set the example of African Lib-
erty."

He also says the sovereigns of England, espec-
ially Elizabeth and Anne, "participated in the

94 A NEW NEGRO FOR

hazard, the profits and the crimes, and became
at once smugglers and slave merchants."

We are horrified at this depravity, and yet his-
tory is repeating itself; Christian England and
America are to-day, with the approval of their
rulers, sending opium to China and rum to Africa.

As we purpose showing how slavery spread to
the different colonies, we will take a hasty glance
at each of them, in the order of its introduction.

Virginia, 1619: — It seems to be a mooted ques-
tion among historians, as to whether the Dutch
ship landed the first slaves of the thirteen original
colonies at Jamestown, Virginia,in 1619 or 1620.
We find as much authority for the one year as the
other; but upon the whole we are inclined, with
Ridpath, Williams and others, to favor 1619 as
the correct date.

However,the first slaves that landed in what is now
the United States, were brought to Florida at the
founding of St. Augustine in 1565, by Pedro Men-
endez de Aviles, who entered into a compact with
his sovereign, Philip II. of Spain, in which he
obligated himself to take with him five hundred
slaves.

In Virginia the institution of slavery grew very
slowly at first, and the Negroes were regarded as
chattels; but an act was passed in 1705 declaring
them to be real estate.

The slaves had no personal rights, and could
not leave the plantation to which they belonged,
without a written pass from their master. If one
dared to lift a hand against a Christian (.?) or white
man, he received thirty lashes, and if he resisted
punishment, was liable to be killed with impunity,

REV. N. B. WOOD,
Historian and Lecturer.

06 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and his murderer was guiltless in the eyes of the
law. Trial by jury was denied him, and more
than five meeting together was considered felony,
and punishable by death.

We read of slaves given in part payment to
clergymen for preaching to whites, but no record
•of any one preaching to Negroes. A few Negroes
were emancipated for meritorious services, but a
law passed in 1699 required them to leave the
colony within six months of securing their liberty.

New York, 1628: — Slavery was introduced at this
time; but the kind-hearted Dutch treated their
Negro slaves with much humanity. The institu-
tion was mainly patriarchal. Manumissioa of
slaves for meritorious services, or prompted by
justice, was quite frequent. Under this mild sys-
tem the Negroes were correspondingly happy.
They married and were given in marriage, they
sowed and reaped a good share of the fruits of
their labor. While there were no schools for
them, there were no laws against their receiving
instruction when their work was done.

There is not found in all history a greater con-
trast than is presented by the treatment accorded
these slaves by the humane Dutch, and that of
their English conquerors. In 1702 an act was
passed making it unlawful to trade with Negro
slaves, on pain of fine or imprisonment.

"Not above three slaves were allowed to meet
together, on pain of being whipped by a justice
of the peace, or sent to jail."

In 1 7 10 the city of New YorK passed an ordi-
nance forbidding slaves appearing in the streets
after dark without a lighted lantern, on penalty

A NEW CENTURY 97

of being locked up in the watch-house that night,
and sent to prison the next day until the mastei
paid the fine; after v/hich the slave received fifty
lashes and was discharged.

A slave market was erected at the foot of Wall
Street, where slaves were sold daily to the highest
bidder. Negroes had no family relation, but lived
together by common consent. Even free Negroes
had no property, land, schools or other privileges-
Thus their lives were spent in a huge sepulcher
and they were buried in a common ditch after
death. This horrible state of affairs culmiinated
in the so-called "Negro plot" of 1741. In Febru-
ary of that year the house of Robert Hogg, a
merchant of New York City, was robbed of fine
linen, medals, silver coin, etc. The case was given
to the officers of the law to arrest and punish the
guilty parties. They pushed the case with such
zeal that aided by a "diseased public conscience,
inflamed by religious bigotry, accelerated by hired
liars, and consummated in the blind and bloody
action of a court and jury who imagined them-
selvs sitting over a powder magazine," they per-
petrated in the namie of law the darkest and most
cruel deed in American history.

From May iith to August 29th, one hundred
and fifty-four Negroes were cast into prison, four-
teen of whom were burned at the stake, eighteen
hanged, seventy-one transported, and the remain-
der pardoned. All because a few Negroes stole
goods from a prominent merchant, "and the peo-
ple imagined a vain thing," namely, that a plot
was made by the Negroes to murder the \\hites
and bum the city. Some of the poor Vvretcke^*

98 A NEW NEGRO FOR

resorted to accusing others, hoping so to obtain
pardon thereby, until the jail was filled to over-
flowing. The slightest accusation of this kind
was welcomed, and distorted into positive proof
of guilt. Moreover, it must be remembered that
the "Negroes were considered heathen, and there-
fore not sworn by the court; that they were not
allowed counsel; that the evidence was indirect,
contradictory, and malicious; while the trials were
hasty and unfair."

In time all believers in the "Negro Plot" were
converted to the opinion that the zeal of the
magistrates had not been "according to knowl-
edge," and that there was no competent evidence
to show that there had been an organized plot.
Every fair historian now condemns the heartless
and bloodthirsty magistrates.

Every law passed by the legislature of New
York prior to the Revolution, tended to curtail
the Negroes' rights, until their condition was
little removed from the brute. Nor did "Our
Brother in Black" fare much better in the other
colonies.

Massachusetts, 1633: — We come now to con-
sider slavery in the "Old Bay State." It must
have been introduced before 1633, for we read
that during that year some Pequod Indians found
a Negro up in a tree who was lost and trying to
find his way home. The Indians were frightened,
so ran to the white settlement and reported they
had seen the Devil.

As early as 1637 some of the Fequod Indians,
"who would not endure the yoke or be obedient
servants," were sent to the Bermudas and ex-

A NEW CENTURY 99

changed for Negroes, Sometimes slaves received
kind treatment, but as often cruel; depending en-
tirely upon the disposition of the master.

"Negro children were considered an incum-
brance in the family, and when weaned, were given
away like young puppies," as we learn from the
famous Dr. Dunlap.

The great and good missionary to the Indians,
John Eliot, "had long lamented with a bleeding
and burning passion, that the English used their
Negroes but as their horses or their oxen, and
that so little care was taken about their immortal
souls;" therefore he requested their masters for
several miles around to send their slaves to him
that he might instruct them "in things of their
Everlasting Peace." But he did not Hve long
enough to make much progress in this noble w^ork.

As might have been expected in cultured Massa-
chusetts, there were those wise and humane enough
to realize that a Negro with learning, was a more
valuable slave for the acquisition.

Richard Dalton, of Boston, a ripe scholar and
great linguist, becoming afflicted with weak eyes,
determined to teach his Negro boy Caesar to read
Greek. So proficient did the boy become, that
he could read aloud to his master any Greek author
almost as readily as English.

The "Boston Chronicle" of September 21st,
1769, has the following advertisement: "To be
sold, a likely little Negro boy, who can speak the
French language, and very fit for a valet."

Emboldened by this evidence of capacity for
mental culture, and fitness for citizenship, the
Negroes demanded the privilege of British subjects.

loo A NEW NEGRO FOR

As there was imminent prospect for war with tne
mother country, the colonists were conciliatory to
them, knowing they would prove a factor for
or against them in case of war.

The famous decision of Lord Mansfield about
this time, in the Summersett case, tended to in-
spire a hope in the breast of the slaves of Massa-
chusetts. It may be briefly stated as follows:
Charles Stewart, of Boston, was in London with
his Negro slave, James Summersett, when the
slave was taken sick, and abandoned by his mas-
ter, who seemingly did not care whether he lived
or died. The Negro, recovering, obtained employ-
ment. When the master heard of it, he had him
arrested and put on board a ship about to sail for
Jamaica, where he was to be sold.

Some friends of the Negro made affidavits, and
obtained a writ of habeas corpus. In the ensuing
trial Lord Mansfield gave his decision in the fol-
lowing words: "The state of slavery is of such a
nature that it is incapable of being introduced on
any reasons, moral or political, but only by posi-
tive law, which preserves its force long after the
reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence
it was created is erased from memory. It is so
odious that nothing can be suffered to support it
but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, there-
fore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say
this case is allowed or approved by the law of
England, and therefore the Black must be dis-
charged."

Of course this decision produced universal joy
among the Colonial Negroes, and it caused the
question to arise, as to whether the Colonial

A NEW CENTURY loi

governments could pass acts legalizing that which
was contrary to the law of England.

Maryland, 1634: — This colony was united with
Virginia until 1630; consequently slavery was reg-
ulated by the laws of the "Old Dominion" up to
that time. Thus when the English Catholics un-
der Lord Baltimore settled Maryland in 1634,
they found slavery had preceded them.

The slaves here were worked in a great variety of
employments, such as cultivating tobacco, chop-
ping,learning the different mechanical trades, han-
dling light crafts along the water courses, fishing
and taking oysters. This created a great demand for
Negroes, and their number increased very rapidly.
The period of one hundred and forty-four years,
from the founding of the Colony to the Revolu-
tion, is described as "one long starless night of
oppression and outrage."

As a sample of the brutality of the laws govern-
ing Negroes, an Act was passed in 1723, where
the penalty of a Negro or other slave striking a
white person was to have his ears "cropt on order
of a justice." The Mosaic law taught "an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but in this code
both ears were forfeited for one blow. In 1729 a
still more inhuman Act was passed, by which Ne-
groes and other slaves found guilty of certain
crimes, should be hanged, and afterwards the
bodies quartered and exposed to public view.
Cannibals would go only one step further; they
would eat them after being quartered.

They capped the climax in 1752 by passing an
Act forbidding emancipation by "last will and
testament, or giving freedom to Negro slaves in

102 A NEW NEGRO FOR

any way." Thus, like the horse or ox, the Negr:
of Maryland was absolute property for life. He
was simply in the eyes of the law an upright,
reasoning, talking animal; nothing more nor less.

Delaware, 1636: — ^Vincint, the historian of this
Colony, shows that slavery existed on the Dela-
ware River as early as 1636.

The record shows that Peter Alricks, Calvert,
D'Hinoyossa, and two Indian chiefs, met in
council in September, 1661, to arrange a treaty.
At this time it was agreed to furnish the Dutch
every year three thousand hogsheads of tobacco,
provided the Dutch would "supply them with
Negroes and other commodities." Thus we find an
iuter-Colonial traffic in slaves established.

We infer that slaves were frequently manumit-
ted in this Colony, from the fact that an Act
was passed in 1739 providing that good security
should be given in case of manumission, that the
county should not be at any charge by reason of
sickness or . incapacity for self-support on the
part of said slave. Upon the whole, the Negro
fared better in Dslaware than in some of the other
colonies. But even here he had no rights of any
kind.

Connecticut, 1646: —There is a strong presump-
tive evidence that slavery existed here from the
beginning, certainly since 1646, in spite of a law
passed in 1642, which read as follows: "If any
man stealeth a man or mankind, he shall be put
to death.' Exodus XXI. 16."

Of course this law was a dead letter, but the
growth of slavery in this colony was very gradual.

It is refreshing to read of an Act passed in 1702

JOHN G. MITCHELL,
The Aggressive Editor of the Richmond Planet.

103

104 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

for the benefit of a certain class of slaves. It
seems that certain heartless masters were in the
habit of working their slaves until they were de-
crepit and worn out in their service, and when
they were no longer profitable, emancipated them
to live on charity or starve. They would then
pose as those who had done noble deeds. But
the law-makers were not deceived, and passed an
Act compelling the owners of such slaves, or their
heirs, to provide for them in their old age, even if
they had liberated them by turning them out like
an old horse to die.

We are glad to note that the law was rigidly
enforced. But let no man imagine that a slave
life in this Colony was "a flowery bed of ease."

Often was he publicly flogged for the high crime
and misdemeanor of being out the night before
without a pass from his master. And to make
matters worse, if he used any strong epithets, or
gave vent to his feelings in defamatory language,
while undergoing punishment, he was subject to a
double dose of the same medicine, by special Act
passed in 1730.

Perhaps, like a man we have heard of, he com-
forted himself with the thought that he could not
do such a law justice, and therefore said nothing.
The man referred to was a proverbial record-
breaker in profanity. He was drawing a load of
apples up a steep hill, when the end board came
out and all the apples rolled out of the wagon
pell-mell to the bottom of the hill. Thinking he
could not do the occasion justice, the man simply
folded his arms and said nothings

When the mutterings of the impending war

A NEW CENTURY 105

were heard in the distance, the colonists were
aroused to the inconsistency of fighting for free-
dom while holding slaves in cruel bondage. Nor
were they blind to the fact that their Negroes
could be induced by kind treatment to help them
against the common enemy. Accordingly the
following Act was passed in 1774: "No Indian,
Negro or mulatto slave shall at any time hereafter
be brought or imported into this state, by sea or
land, from any place or places whatsoever, to be
disposed of, left or sold, within this state." Thus
we find that Connecticut tried to alleviate the
condition of her slaves, and legislate against the
nefarious traffic.

She should have taken one more step and liber-
ated the slaves she had at this time, but had she
done so, doubtless England would have repealed
the Act, as she did in the case of Pennsylvania and
New Hampshire. We think it might be recorded
of Connecticut, "She hath done what she could."
Her sable sons showed their appreciation of her
kindness by fighting nobly to free their masters in
the Revolutionary struggle.

Rhode Island, 1647: — It is supposed slavery was
introduced in this year. It remained for this liberty-
loving little colony to pass the first positive Act
against slavery recorded in modern history. It
was passed in 1652 by the General Court, and is
worded as follows: "Whereas, there is a common
course practiced among Englishmen to buy Ne-
gers, to that end they may have them for service
or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such prac-
tices among us, let it be ordered that no biacke
mankind or white being forced by covenant bond.

io6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

or otherwise, to serve any man or his assignees-
longer than ten years, or until they come to bee
twenty-four years of age, if they bee taken in un-
der fourteen, from the time of their cominge with-
in the liberties of this Collonie. And at the end
or terme of ten years to sett them free, as the
manner is with the English servants. And that
man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell
them away elsewhere, to that end that they may
bee enslaved to others for a long time,hee or they
shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds."

We rejoice that this little Colony, founded by
Roger Williams, the friend cf the oppressed, the
defender of civil and religious liberty, should put
herself on record in this manner. It is about the
kind of law one would expect from "Little
Rhodie." But it is deplorable that it was abortive
and became a dead letter, since it was not backed
up by public sentim.ent, either in the Colony or
the mother country. For it is notoriously true
that slavery flourished here even with this law
upon the statute books.

No doubt some good came of the law, for as
Bancroft well says, "the law was not enforced,
but the principle lived among the people." For
we read that when Acts were passed imposing
fines on "housekeepers" for entertaining slaves
after nine o'clock at night, they paid their fines
cheerfully and continued to treat the slaves kindly.
This shows that the leaven of the anti-slavery law
was permeating the Colony.

New Jersey, 1664: — Slavery was introduced here
before the formation of a separate colony, and
probably near the same time it appeared in New
Netherlands.

A NEW CENTURY 107

The record of early history in New Jersey in
meager, but enough is known to show the slaves
received kinder treatment here than in any of the
other colonies. This was the invariable rule where
the population was composed largely of Quakers
and Dutch. With the exception of an Act pro-
tecting slaves from drunkenness, by punishing those
who sold or gave them rum, few laws of impor-
taftce touching slavery were passed for many years.

An Act passed by the Legislature of East Jersey
in 1664 provided for the trial of "Negroes and
other slaves for felonies punishable with death,"
to be by a jury of twelve persons before three
justices of the peace; for theft, before two justices;
the punishment by whipping. To the glory of
New Jersey be it said this was the only Colony
that gave to the Negro that coveted boon, the
right of trial by jury. In most of the other colonies
the Negro was convicted even before the mock
trial, often without the shadow of justice. But
here I doubt not he had both shadow and sub-
stance. Verily in this Colony, "the lines had
fallen unto him in pleasant places."

The example of the Quakers for teaching the
colored people was contagious, for others gave
them instruction, and encouraged the preaching
of the gospel unto them. It is believed that free
Negroes were enlisted in rrilitary companies of this
Colony. And the law of 1760 implies that slaves
for life could be enlisted by obtaining permission
from their masters.

South Carolina, 1665: — The entire slave popu-
lation of South Carolina was regarded as chattel
property absolutely. The solemnity of a jury was

io8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

never tillowed them. But in case of "burglary,
robbery, burning of houses, killing or stealing of
any meat or other cattle, or other petty injuries,
as maiming one of another, stealing of fowls, pro-
visions, or such like trespass, or injuries," he was
tried for his life before two justices and three
freeholders, who often sentenced him to death for
the most trivial offence.

The code of laws of South Carolina for the cor-
rection of slaves stands without a parallel for
cruelty. For striking a white man, he was severely
w^hipped for the first offence, for the second
whipped still more severely, had his nose slit, and
face burned, and for the third offence a cruel death
was his portion. If any Negro, slave or free, tried
to persuade some other slave to run off out of the
colony, he received on conviction forty lashes and
was branded on the forehead with a red-hot iron,
that "the mark thereof might remain." Any white
man meeting a Negro might demand of him to
show his ticket; and on refusal could "beat, maim
or assault him." And if such slave could not be
taken, to "kill him."

Such codes trained the white people into a brood
of tyrants. Even the "poor white trash," who
did not own a Negro, would knock them down,
and throw them off the sidewalk in wanton cruelty;
while the overseer who was most disposed to beat
and torture the poor Negro received the highest
salary. The young white boys took their cue
from their fathers and overseers, and it was a com-
mon sight to see them in their sports, whip in hand,
threatening or punishing the little Negroes.

In time a reaction took place, for it dawned

A NEW CENTURy 109

upon the planters that a Negro could do more
labor with less abuse, especially where it was
bestowed by those having no authority. A law
existed against teaching a Negro to read or write,
but for obvious reasons there was more leniency
shown them some years before the Revolution.

North Carolina, 1669: — The code of laws pro-
posed by Dracho for Athens is said to have been
written in blood, because of its severity. The
constitution and code of laws drafted by John
Locke for the government of North Carolina, might
be described as written in blood with a goose-quill.
Surely a more brutal, unwieldy and asinine code
was never proposed for the government of a crude
young colony, but little removed from a backwoods
settlement, in the world's history. All of the in-
soluble problems of political economy of the past,
much of the visionary speculation of the future, was
dumped into a common heap by this absurd instru-
ment. In short, it might be defined as a conglomer-
ation of heterogeneous inconsistencies. The poet
assures us-that,

"Kings and Lords may flourish or may fade,

A breath can make them as a breath has made,
But the honest yeomanry, the country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be suppHed. "

The Locke constitution was an insult to hu-
manity and designed to wrest from the yeomanry
what few rights were conferred by the Magna
Charta.

We read that "no elective franchise could be
conferred upon a freeholder of less than fifty
acres," while "all executive power was vested in
the proprietors themselves, or the nobility."

no A NEW NEGRO FOR

According to Bancroft: "The instinct of aris-
tocracy dreads the moral power of a proprietary
yeomanry; the perpetual degradation of the culti-
vators of the soil was enacted The leet-men or
tenants, holding ten acres of land at a fixed rent,
were not only destitute of political franchise, but
were adscripts of the soil; under the jurisdiction
of the lord without appeal; and it was added,
•all the children of leet-men shall be leet-men,
and so to all generations.'" It seems, then, that
tenants were but little more then serfs or slaves;
and if they, Anglo Saxons as they were, received
such treatment at the hands of these petty lords,
so-called, what mercy could the poor Negro ex-
pect? "If they have called the master of the
house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call
them of his household?"

By way of numbering largely and for political
purposes, they received the Negro slaves into the
established church. But in the constitution we
find this language: "Every freeman of Carolina
shall have absolute power and authority over his
Negro slaves of what opinion or religion soever;"
thus his humanity was conceded, and a little
regard had for his i^oul, but his body was the ab-
solute property of a brutal owner who "neither
feared God nor regarded man." While Negroes
were received into the church, there is no record
of any effort made in or out of the church to give
them instruction or banish their dark clouds of
ignorance, superstition and crime.

While traveling from one plantation to another,
a Negro was required to take the most frequented
road or path; and if found in any other,except in the

A NEW CENTURY m

company of a white man, he was Hable to be seized
by the owner of the land through which he was
passing, and hit forty lashes. If one Negro enter-
tained another from a different plantation, at
night, the only time they could visit, he was sub-
ject to twenty lashes on his bare back, while the
guest received forty in the same manner. Still
there was one clause of humanity in this code
which is commendable. In case a poor half-
starved slave was found guilty of stealing hogs or
corn, damages could be recovered against his
master in the county or general court. But we
turn from this to a brutal act where a slave guilty
of giving false testimony, "should have one ear
nailed to the pillory, and there stand for the space
of one hour, the said ear to be cut off, and there-
after the other ear nailed in like manner, and cut
off at the expiration of one other hour " The
Locke constitution seemed to create an insatiable
thirst for blood, so much so, and the murder of
slaves became so frequent, that the Legislature
was forced to call a halt, by refusing to pay for
the slaves killed.

New Hampshire, 1679: — Public sentiment of this
Colony was decidedly opposed to Negro slavery,
and the Governor used his authority to manumit
a slave March 14, 1684. Belknap's History of
New Hampshire thus records the fact: "The
governor tould Mr. Jeffery's Negro hee might goe
from his master, hee would clere him under hande
and sole, so the fello no more attends his mas-
ter's conscernes." In their criminal code we find
this article: "If any man stealeth mankind, he
shall be put to death, or otherwise grievously

112 A NEW NEGRO FOR

punished." It is safe to infer that this law would
not have been a dead letter- in this Colony as it
was in Massachusetts and Connecticut; but un-
fortunately England rejected the whole code as
"fanatical and absurd." The Governor of thif
Colony,backed by public sentiment, determined to
do all he could to prevent legal recognition of
slaves; but in this he was opposed by the author-
ity of the Crown, as the following order of 1761
would indicate: "You are not to give your assent
to, or pass any law imposing duties on Negroes
imported into New Hampshire."

The severe climate mitigated against their prof-
itable use; so few Negroes found their way into
the Colony. While some were treated with great
kindness, others through neglect, poorly clad and
fed, were often hurried to premature graves. This
called for an Act in 1718 for restraining inhuman
severities inflicted upon servants and slaves; a
portion of which we quote from "Freedom and
Bondage," as follows: "If any man smite out the
eye or tooth of his man servant or maid servant,
or otherwise maim or disfigure them much, unless
it be by mere casualty, he shall let him or her go
free from his service. If any person or persons
whatever in this province shall willfully kill his
Indian or Negro servant or servants, he shall be
punished with death." Probably this is the only
Colony that ever passed a law inflicting the death
penalty on a man for murdering a Negro slave.

Pennsylvania, 1681: — It is to the credit of the
Quakers that one of their number, Francis Daniel
Pastorius, drafted the first protest against slavery
issued by any religious body in America- This

JUDSOIS Vv. L\01^S,

sign Uncle Sam's money to make it good.

113

1.4 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

was written in 1688, and adopted by the German-
town Friends, and by them sent to the monthly
meeting, and thence to the yearly meeting at
Philadelphia. The original of this remarkable
document was found by Nathan Kite of Philadel-
phia in i8z,4. Referring to the slaves it said:
"Have not these Negroes as much right to hght for
their freedom as you have to keep them slaves?"
It prophesied the time would come,

"When from the gallery to the farthest seat,
Slave and slave owner shall no longer meet.
But all sit equal at the Master's feet."

It also boldly denounced "the buying, selling,
and holding men in slavery, as inconsistent with
the Christian religion." But when this memorial
came for action before the yearly meeting, it was
voted "not proper then to give a positive judg-
ment in the case." Still in 1696 the yearly meet-
ing pronounced in unmistakable language against
importing more slaves, and adopted measures
tending to the m.oral improvement of those in the
Colony. George Keith denounced slavery "as con-
trary to the religion of Christ, the rights of man,
and sound reason and policy."

The pious philanthropist, William Penn, tried
in vain to embody his anti-slavery sentiments into
the law of the province.

He encouraged his people by example and in-
fluence to treat the poor Negro with great kind-
ness and justice, and we see the Society of Friends
did more to ameliorate the condition of slaves
than any other religious body. On the seventh of
June, 1 71 2, a bill was passed emancipating slaves
by law, but was repealed by Queen Anne, thg
notorious slave merchant.

A NEW CENTURY nS

Georgia, 1732: — General John Oglethorpe, the
founder and first Governor of Georgia, has received
much unmerited praise from the casual reader of
history because he opposed the introduction of
slavery into that Colony. But his opposition was
based on political and prudential motives, rather
than philanthropy. Dr. Stevens, the Georgia
historian, informs us that even Oglethorpe owned
a plantation and Negroes in South Carolina, about
forty miles above Savannah.

England was anxious to have a strong settle-
ment of white men on her southern boundary, to
protect her from the Spanish Colony on the south,
and the Indians on the west; so it was thought
the introduction of Negroes would be unfavorable
to this scheme, as they were apt to desert to the
Spanish. But the reasons assigned by the trustees
for prohibiting slavery were: "i. Its expense,
both in buying and keeping a Negro slave. 2. It
would induce to idleness and render labor degrad-
ing. 3. The settlers being freeholders of fifty acres
each, requiring only one or two extra hands for
their cultivation, the German servants would be
more profitable than black."

Moreover, it was claimed that the cultivation of
silk and wine requiring skill rather than strength
and endurance, whites were better adapted to it
than Negroes.

As the colony grew, England became determined
to carry out her original policy ; but the settlers were
equally resolved to have Negroes. The constant
toast of the authorities was "the one thing need-
ful," Negroes; they even smuggled them into the
Colony. The opposition weakened, and in 174P

ii6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Rev. Martin Bolzins wrote to the trustees as fol-
lows: "Things being now in such a melancholy
state, I must humbly beseech your honors not to
regard our, or our friends petition against Negroes."
Even the great George Whitefield used his ut-
most influence in favor of bringing Negroes into
the Colony. It seems that he had a visionary
scheme to build an orphanage in Georgia for the
benefit of Indian children.

Through the bounty of his friends, Whitefield
owned two small plantations; one in South Caro-
lina, where slaves were employed, the other in
Georgia, where only free help was used. In his
letter to the trustees of Georgia, he rejoices in the
success of the plantation in South Carolina, ena-
bling him to support a great many orphans, but
deplores the fact that the one in Georgia was a
failure, and concludes by saying: "This confirms
me in the opinion I have entertained for a long
time, that Georgia never can or will be a flour-
ishing province without Negroes are allowed."
What a contrast is presented by Whitefield's
view and that of a nobler and grander contem-
porary reformer, John Wesley, whose name will
be fragrant while time lasts. Said he: "Slavery
iSf in and of itself, the execrable sum of all
villainies."

We wonder if Whitefield ever considered that
one reason why his South Carolina plantation was
profitable, was because it was run on the economi-
cal plan of half starving and overworking the
poor slaves, stimulated as they were by the over-
seer's lash We wonder, too, if he considered that
slavery was the prime cause of making an orphan-

'A NEW CENTURY iiy

age necessary, since this cruel system produced
more orphans among the Indians and Negroes than
all other agencies combined. Did he take into
account the character of labor then used on Georgia
plantations, such as were obtained by emptying
the jails and almshouses of England; men who
were by nature and practice crminals and vagrants,
of whom it might have been said, "they toil not,
neither do they spin?" Lastly, we wonder if this
great preacher ever noticed closely the language
of his Lord, "One is your Master, even Christ; and
all ye are brethren." Under the influence of
Whitefield and others, slavery was introduced in
1749. Thus the seeds of slavery were sown in
this the youngest and fairest of the original thir-
teen colonies. Some of the terrible harvest was
reaped by the swords of Sherman's army in that
never to be forgotten march through the state;
during which they burned and wasted the country,
"sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the
main." Verily, "God is not mocked: for whatso-
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

CHAPTER VIII.
NEGRO SOLDIERS IN THE REVOLUTION.

It was said that Marshal Ney fought five hun-
dred battles for France, and not one against her,
and yet he was shot as a traitor to his country.
So in reading the annals of history, we see the
Negro fought to gain and perpetuate the liberty of
this country, in every prominent war, from the
French and Indian to the Rebellion, while he
himself was forced to remain in bondage.

We read of no greater inconsistency or more
indefensible farce, than to call this the land of
freedom, when millions of her people were slaves,
including some of the most gallant defenders of
this country or their descendants.

When we meet together on "the day we cele-
brate," our orators are prone to ring the changes
on the American eagle, Washington and the brave
patriots of '']6\ but who ever heard a Fourth of
July orator refer to La Fayette and the French,
or the other brave foreigners, but for whom our
^ause would probably have failed.?

When was a reference in such a speech, made to
the part performed by the black men in that glori-
ous struggle for freedom? It would almost seem

118

A NEW CENTURY 119

that a systematic effort was made to consign these
swarthy heroes to oblivion, and obliterate their very
names from the page of history. But we are glad to
know that the effort was a futile one. Still, while
ourdatas are somewhat fragmentary, they are am-
ple for a sketch, and we doubt not, the greater
part of the story which perhaps will never be
known was fully equal to this sample: —

There is positive proof that at least two Negroes
c f Virginia, Israel Titus and Samuel Jenkins, fought
under Braddock and Washington in the French
and Indian war. The first died at Williamstown,
Massachusetts, in 1855, about one hundred and ten
years of age. A sketch of his life was published
in the Springfield Republican of about that date.
Samuel Jenkins is thought to have been about
one hundred and fifteen years old when he died at
Lancaster, Ohio, in 1849. The Lancaster Gazette
of that period gave a brief sketch of his life, re-
markable in many respects.

There were doubtless others in this war who
lived and died unknown to fame, their names and
records having been lost

The protomartyr of the Revolutionary war was
Crispus Attucks, a Negro, who was the leader in
the Boston massacre on that memorable 5th of
March, 1770. Attucks led the citizens in the
charge, shouting, "The way to get rid of these
idlers is to attack the main guard; strike at the
root; this is the nest !" These were perhaps his
last words, as his men threw a shower of clubs,
stones and brickbats at the soldiers, which they
returned with a galling fire. Attucks was the
first to fall, being conspicuous on account of his

I20 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

height, which was six feet and two inches, and the
still more important fact that he was in advance
of his men. Two others, Samuel Gray and Jonas
Caldwell, were killed, while Samuel Maverick and
Patrick Carr, an Irishman, were mortally wounded.
Attucks and Caldwell were buried from Faneuil
Hall, afterwards called the "Cradle of Liberty,"
the other two from their homes, but all four in one
common grave, with the following epitaph on their
monument.

"Long as in freedom's cause the wise contend.
Dear to your country shall your fame extend,
While to the world the lettered stone shall tell,
Where Caldwell, Attucks, Gray and Maverick fell."

Crispus Attucks was a man of some learning,
and sometime before his tragic death indited the
following letter to the Tory Governor of Massa-
chusetts:

"To Thomas Hutchinson: — You will hear from
us with astonishment. You ought to hear from
us with horror. You are chargeable before God
and man with our blood. The soldiers were but
passive instruments, were machines; neither moral
nor voluntary agents in our destruction, more than
the leaden pellets with which we were wounded.
You were a free agent. You acted coolly, de-
liberately, with all that premeditated malice, not
against us in particular, but against the people in
general, which, in the sight of the law, is an in-
gredient in the composition of murder. You will
hear further from us hereafter.

"Crispus Attucks."

And he did hear, and the world has heard of
this liberty-loving hero and patriot. For by his

A NEW CENTURY 121

death and that of his fellow patriots the torch of
liberty was kindled in Boston never to be extin-
guished.

Every schoolboy has read of Major Pitcairn,
who commanded the British regulars in the fight
at Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, shout-
ing to the militia: "Disperse, you rebels; lay down
your arms and disperse!" And when they stood
their ground, how he ordered his men to fire,
which command they obeyed, killing seven of the
patriots, the first martyrs of the Revolution. But
it is not as well known that one of those who fell
that day was a Negro; and that his death and
that of his fellow martyrs was avenged by another
Negro, the brave Peter Salem, who killed Major
Pitcairn while leading his men in the charge at the
battle of Bunker Hill.

This Peter Salem was born and lived at Farm-
ington, Massachusetts, and was probably a slave
until the beginning of the Revolution. He served
faithfully throughout the entire war.

There were quite a number of the sons of Africa
fighting side by side with their countrymen of the
white race at Bunker Hill, several of whom were
conspicuous for their bravery, among them Salem
Poor, Titus Coburn, Alexander Ames,Barzilai Lew,
and Cato Howe, each of whom received a pension.
This fact is established by the painting of Colonel
Trumbull, who witnessed this battle from Roxbury
and reproduced it upon canvas in 1786. He re-
produced several Negroes in the front ranks fight-
ing valiantly, with visible results. Indeed, as
Henry Wilson stated, "it is hardly too much to
say that some of the most heroic deeds of the war

122 A NEW NEGRO FOR

of Independence were performed by black men."
The following incident is a case in point. When
Major General Prescott commanded the British
troops at Newport, Colonel Barton, with a black
soldier named Prince, determined to capture him;
and considering the fact that he was surrounded
by his guard, with a large number of British sol-
diers quartered near, together with a fleet of ships,
it was a remarkably successful stratagem. In com-
pany with "Black Prince," several other Negroes,
and a detachment of the militia. Colonel Barton one
dark night started in boats from a house about five
miles above Newport. Muffling the oars, and
avoiding the ships, they came on as noiselessly as
possible, landing a short distance from the hotel,
where he knew General Prescott had established
his headquarters. It was arranged that Colonel
Barton should take the lead, followed by Prince
a short distance behind, while some of the other
men brought up the rear.

When the Colonel drew near the hotel,
the sentinel presented his gun and challenged
him, but he continued to advance, throwing
the sentinel off his guard by talking about
rebel prisoners, and denouncing the rebels in
general. Again the sentinel demanded the pass-
word; he replied that he did not have the pass-
word, but was loyal to his country. By this
time he was near the sentinel, when, suddenly seiz-
mg his gun, he struck it to one side and wrenched
it from his hand. Prince now seized the soldier
in his vice-like grip, and having been bound and
gagged he was handed over to the other men who
had come up.

A NEW CENTURY 123

The Colonel and Prince now drew their weapons
and rushed into the hotel office, where they met
the landlord and demanded that he should show
them General Prescott's room; heat first refused,
but being threatened with instar.t death, he pointed
to the room above. The Colonel and Prince now
hurried up to this room, and finding it locked, the
brave Negro burst in the door with his head, and
seized General Prescott in bed. Seeing that re-
sistance was useless and knowing that the slight-
est outcry meant death, he surrendered to his
captors, was soon in the boat and conveyed within
the American lines. He was afterwards exchanged
for General Lee, an American officer of equal
rank.

George W. Williams, the leading colored his-
torian, estimates from official sources that there
were not less than three thousand colored soldiers
in the revolution, including Negro soldiers from
every Northern colony, scattered throughout the
white regiments; while Rhode Island raised a
colored regiment commanded by Colonel Chris-
topher Green, and Connecticut raised a black bat-
talion of soldiers commanded in part by Colonel
David Humphrey. But, as usual, Little Rhode Island
was the most consistent of the thirteen colonies;
she first made freemen of her black sons before
permitting them to fight for freedom, and indeed
it is not surprising that this regiment proved to
have as gallant soldiers as any in the Revolution.
The Negro troops turned the tide in the battle of
Fhode Island, which was pronounced by Lafay-
f'\e "the best fought battle of the war."

Vrnold. in his history of the above named state,

124 2 NEW NEGRO FOR

thus referred to it: "It was in repelling these
furious onsets that the newly raised black legi-
ment under Colonel Green distinguished itself by
deeds of valor. Posted behind a thicket in the
valley, they three times drove back the Hessians
who charged repeatedly down the hill to dislodge
them."

One admirable trait that characterized this
black regiment was devotion to their officers.
This was nobly demonstrated in the attack made
upon the American lines near Croton River, on
the thirteenth of May, 1781. Colonel Green,
their gallant commander, was cut down and mor-
tally wounded; but the enemy's saber only reached
him through the bodies of his faithful guard of
blacks, who hovered over him to defend him and
fought until every one of them was killed. Leon-
idas and the Spartans at Thermopylae did no more.
Truly didTristam Burgess say in Congress in 1828,
"No braver men met the enemy in battle."

We are indebted to William C. Nell's work on
Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, for
valuable information, including the following ad-
dress, which was delivered in 1842, before the
Congregational and Presbyterian Anti-Slavery
Society, at Francestown, New Hampshire, by Dr.
Harris, a Revolutionary veteran. It is of great
interest, because it is an eye-witness describing
what he had actually seen. Said he, after giving
some of his own exploits: "There was a black regi-
ment, yes, a regiment of Negroes, fighting for our
liberty and independence — not a white man among
them but the officers — stationed at what was called
a flanking position, that is, upon a place which

A NEW CENTURY 125

the enemy must pass in order to come round in
our rear, to drive us from the fort. This pass
was everything, both to the enemy and us. Had
the colored soldiers given way before the enemy
or been unfaithful, all would have been lost.

"Three times in succession were they attacked,
with most desperate valor and fury, by well dis-
ciplined and veteran troops, and three times did
they successfully repel the assault, and thus pre-
served our army from capture. They fought
through the war. They were brave, hardy troops.
They helped to gain our liberty and independence.

"Now, the war is over, our freedom is gained —
what is to be done with these colored soldiers,
who have shed their best blood in its defense?
Must they be sent off out of the country, because
they are black? Or must they be sent back into
slavery, now they have risked their lives and shed
their blood to secure the freedom of their masters?
I ask, what became of these noble colored
soldiers? Many of them, I fear, were taken back
to the South, and doomed to the fetter and the
chain.

"And why is it that the colored inhabitants of
our nation, born in this country, and entitled to
ail the rights of freedom, are held in slavery?
Why, but because they are black! I have often
thought that, should God see fit, by a miracle,
to change their color, straighten their hair, and
give their features and complexion the appearance
of the whites, slavery would not continue a year.
No, you would then go and abolish it with the
sword, if it were not speedily done without. But
is it a suitable cause for making men slaves be-

126 A NEW NEGRO FOR

cause God has given them such color, such hair
and such features as he saw fit?"

Simon Lee, the grandfather of William Wells
Brown, on his mother's side, was a slave in Vir-
ginia, and served in the Revolution; although
honorably discharged with the other Virginia
troops, at the close of the war, he was sent back
to his master, where he spent the remainder of
his life in toiling on a tobacco plantation. Such
is the injustice toward the colored American, that,
after serving in his country's struggle for freedom
he is doomed to fill the grave of a slave!

La Fayette, in his letter to Clarkson, said: "I
would never have drawn my sword in the cause of
America, if I could have conceived that thereby I
was founding a land of slavery."

The following incident from Theodore Parker
shows that other black veterans of the Revolution
were remanded to slavery, and doubtless there
were many such cases. A sea-captain of Massa-
chusetts who commanded a small brig, which
plied between Carolina and the Gulf States, said
to Mr. Parker, "One day at Charleston a man
came and brought to me an old Negro slave.
He was very old and had fought in the Revolution,
and had been much distinguished for bravery and
other soldierly qualities. If he had not been a
Negro, he would have become a captain at least,
perhaps a colonel. But in his old age, his master
found no use for him, and said he could not afford
to keep him. He asked me to take the Revolu-
tionary soldier and carry him South and sell him,
I carried him to Mobile and tried to get as good
and kind a master for him as I could, for I didn't

A NEW CENTURY 127

like to sell a man who had fought for his country.

"I sold the old Revolutionary veteran for a hun-
dred dollars to a citizen of Mobile, who raised
poultry, and he set him to tend a hen coop." Mr.
Parker remarked that he supposed the South
Carolina master, "a true gentleman," drew the
pension till the soldier died. Then turning to the
sea captain, whom he knew to be an anti-slavery
man, he asked: "How could you do such a thing?"
**If I had not done it," he replied, "I never could
have received another bale of cotton, nor hogs-
head of sugar, nor anything to carry from or to
any Southern port."

Theodore Parker also stated that in his day
workmen, while excavating for the foundations of
the large dry goods stores of New York city, un-
earthed a large number of human skeletons. On
investigation they proved to be the bones of colored
American soldiers, who fell in the battle of Long
Island in 1776. They were carted off to fill up a
chasm, and thrown on the beach to make the
foundations of warehouses, like any other rubbish
of the city. Had they been white men they would
have been buried anew, but as they were only
Negroes who had died for their own and their
masters' country, this was their fate.

Hon. Calvin Goddard, of Connecticut, states
that he was instrumental in securing, under Act of
1 818, the pensions of nineteen colored soldiers. "I
cannot," he says, "refrain from mentioning one
black man. Primus Babcock, who proudly pre-
sented to me an honorable discharge from service
during the war, dated at the close of it, wholly in
the handwriting of George Washington. Nor can I

128 A NEW NEGRO FOR

forget the expression of his feelings when in-
formed, after his discharge had been sent to the
War Department, that it could not be returned.
At his request it was written for, as he seemed in-
clined to spurn the pension and reclaim the dis-
charge."

There is a pathetic anecdote told of Baron
Steuben, at the time the American army disbanded.
"A black soldier with his wounds unhealed, utterly
destitute, stood on the wharf just as a vessel
bound for his distant home was getting under way.
The poor fellow gazed at the vessel with tears in
his eyes, and gave himself up to utter despair.
The warm-hearted foreigner noticed his emotions,
and inquiring into the cause of it, took his last
dollar from his purse and gave it to him, while
tears of sympathy trickled down his cheeks. Over-
whelmed with gratitude, the poor wounded soldier
hailed the ship and was received on board. As it
moved out of the wharf he cried back to his noble
friend on shore, *God Almighty bless you, Master
Baron.'"

We have already stated that Connecticut raised
a battalion of colored soldiers, who were among
the bravest in the American army. Some of them
even immortalized their names as heroes "who
were not born to die," as the following letter from
Parker Pillsbury of New Hampshire, to William C.
Nell, clearly indicates: "The names of the two
brave men of color who fell with Ledyard at the
storming of Fort Griswold, were Lambo Latham
and Jordan Freeman. All the names of the slain
at that time, are inscribed on a marble tabl'^^
wrought into the monument — the names of the

CHAS. CHESNUT,

Of Cleveland, Ohio, Author of "The Conjure Woman," "Life

of Frederick Douglass," and Volume of Short Stories.

129

I30 A NEW NEGRO FOR

colored soldiers last, and not only last, but a
blank space is left between them and the whites;
in genuine keeping with the "Negro Pew distinc-
tion— setting them not only below all the others,
but by themselves, even after that. And it is
difficult to say why. They were not last in the
fight.

"When Major Montgomery, one of the leaders in
the expedition against the Americans, was lifted
upon the walls of the fort by his soldiers, flourish-
ing his sword and calling on them to follow him,
Jordan Freeman received him on the point of a
pike, and pinned him dead to the earth (see
Historical Collectionsof Connecticut) ; and the name
of Jordan Freeman stands away down last on the
list of heroes — perhaps the greatest hero of them
all." But what of the other black hero who was
with him.^ We will let a nephew of feis, William
Anderson, of New London, Connecticut, tell the
story.

"September 6th, 1781, New London was taken
by the British, under the command of that arch
traitor, Benedict Arnold. The small band com-
posing the garrison retreated to the fort opposite,
in the town of Groton, and there resolved either
to gain a victory or die for their country. The
latter pledge was faithfuiiy redeemed and by none
more gallantly than the two colored men; and if
the survivors of that day's carnage tell truly, they
fought like tigers and were butchered after the
gates were burst open. One of these men was the
brother of my grandmother, by the name of Lam-
bert,but called Lambo, since chiseled on the marble
monument by the American classic appellation of

A NEW CENTURY 131

*Sambo.' The name of the other black man was
Jordan Freeman.

"Lambert was living with a gentleman in Groton
by the name of Latham; so of course he was called
Lambert Latham. Mr. Latham and Lambert, on
the day of the massacre, were working in a field
at a distance from the house. On hearing the
alarm upon the approach of the enemy, Mr. Latham
started for home, leaving Lambert to drive the
oxen up to the house. On arriving at the house,
Lambert was told that Mr. Latham had gone up
to the fort. Unyoking the oxen from the wagon
and making all secure, he started for the point of
defense, where he arrived before the British began
the attack.

"The assault on the part of the British was a
deadly one, and manifestly resisted by the Ameri-
cans, even to the clubbing of their muskets after
their ammunition was expended; but finally the
little garrison of brave defenders was reduced to
a handful, and could hold out no longer.

"On the entrance of the enemy, the British
officer inquired, 'Who commands this fort.?' The
gallant Ledyard replied, 'I once did; you do now,'
— at the same time handing him his sword, which
was seized, and immediately run through his body
to the hilt by the officer. This was the commence-
ment of an unparalleled slaughter.

"Lambert, being near Colonel Ledyard when he
was slain, retaliated upon the officer by thrusting
his bayonet through his body. Lambert in re-
turn received from the enemy thirty-three bayonet
wounds, and thus fell, nobly avenging the death
of his commander. These facts were given me on

132 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the spot, at the time of the laying of the corner-
stone, by two veterans who were present at the
battle."

We learn from Kent's Commentary that the
Legislature of New York passed an Act during
the Revolutionary War granting freedom to all
slaves who should serve in the army for three
years, or until regularly discharged.

The Hartford Review for September, 1839,
gives the following account of a colored man by
the name of Hamet, living at that time in Middle-
town, Connecticut, who was formerly owned by
Washington: — "Hamet is, according to his own
account, nearly one hundred years old. He draws
a pension for his services in the Revolutionary war,
and manufactures toy drums for his support. He
has a white wife and one child. His hair is white
with age and hangs matted together in masses over
his shoulders. He retains a perfect recollection
of his Massa and Missus Washington, and has
several mementoes of them. Among these there
is a lock of the General's hair, and his service
sword. He converses in three or four different
languages, — the French, Spanish and German, be-
sides his native African tongue."

Another black veteran, Oliver Cromwell, served
six years and nine months under Washington's
immediate command, and received an honorable
discharge in Washington's own handwriting, of
which he was very proud. He received a pension
of ninety-six dollars annually. Was in the battles
of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Monmouth
and Yorktown, at which place he claims to have
seen the last man killed. He enlisted in a company

A NEW CENTURY 133

commanded by Captain Lowery, attached to the
second New Jersey Regiment, under the command
of Colonel Israel Shreve. He brought up seven
sons and seven daughters, who reached the age of
maturity. He was a man of strong natural ability
— never using tobacco or liquor in any form. He
was more than a hundred years of age when he
died at his native town, Columbus, New Jersey,
January 24, 1853.

Another Revolutionary hero, Charles Bowles,
was born in 1761, and at the age of twelve was
placed in the family of a Tory. But he was too
patriotic to be contented with his home, and two
years later found him in the American army a
servant to an officer. When sixteen years of age
he became a regular soldier, serving faithfully to
the end of the war. He then went to New
Hampshire and engaged in farming. He obtained
a pension, became a Baptist preacher of some
prominence, and died in 1843, at the age of eighty-
two.

Rev. Henry F. Harrington wrote an article on
General Washington and Primus Hall, body serv-
ant to Colonel Pickering, of Massachusetts, which
was published in the June issue of Godey's Lady's
Book, 1849.

"On one occasion, the General was engaged in
earnest conversation with Colonel Pickering in his
tent, until after the night had fairly set in. Head-
quarters were at a considerable distance, and
Washington signified his preference to stay with
the Colonel over night, provided he had a spare
blanket and straw. *0, yes,' said Primus, who
was appealed to; 'plenty of straw and blankets-
plenty.'

134 A NEW NEGRO FOR

"Upon this assurance, Washington continued his
conference with the Colonel .until it was time to
retire to rest. Two humble beds were spread,
side by side, in the tent, and the officers laid
themselves down, while Primus seemed to be busy
with duties that required his attention before he
himself could sleep. He worked or appeared to
work, until the breathing of the prostrate gentle-
men satisfied him that they were sleeping; and
then seatinghimself upon a box or stool, he leaned
his head on his hands to obtain such repose as so
inconvenient a position would allow. In the
middle of the night Washington awoke. He
looked about and descried the Negro as he sat.
He gazed at him awhile, and then spoke. 'Pri-
mus,' said he, calling; 'Primus!' Primus started
up and rubbed his eyes. 'What, General?' said
he.

"Washington rose up in his bed. 'Primus,' said
he, 'what did you mean by saying that you had
blankets and straw enough.? Here you have given
up your blanket and straw to me, that I may
sleep comfortably, while you are obliged to sit
through the night.' 'It's nothing, General,' said
Primus. 'It's nothing. I am well enough. Don't
trouble yourself about mie, General, but go to sleep
again. No matter about me, I sleep very good.'

"'But it is matter — it is matter,' said Washing-
ton, earnestly. 'I cannot do it, Primus. If either
is to sit up, I will. But I think there is no need
of either sitting up. The blanket is wide enough
for two. Come and lie down here with me.' 'Oh,
no!* said Primus, starting, and protesting against
the proposition. 'No; let me sit here. I'll do

A NEW CENTURY i35

very well on the stool.' *I say, come and lie down
here!' said Washington authoritatively. 'There is
room for both, and I insist upon it!' He threw
open the blanket as he spoke, and moved to one
side of the straw. Primus professed to have been
exceedingly shocked at the idea of lying under
the same covering with the commander-in-chief,
but his tone was so resolute and determined that
he could not hesitate. He prepared himself, there-
fore, and laid himself down by Washington; and
on the same straw, and under the same blanket,
the General and the Negro servant slept until
morning."

Seymour Burr lived in Connecticut; he was a
slave to a brother of Colonel Aaron Burr, from
whom he received his name. His master treated
him kindly, but the slave sighed for freedom and
was resolved, if possible, to obtain it. Persuading
a number of other slaves to go with him, they
seized a boat, intending to join the British army,
that by so doing they might become freemen.
Nevertheless their owners pursued and overtook
them, and being heavily armed the slaves surren-
dered.

Mr. Burr did not punish Seymour, but asked
him why he had left such a kind master. The
Negro replied that he wanted his Hberty. The
master consented that the Negro should join the
American army, on condition that the master
should receive the bounty money and the slave be
free at the close of the war. Accordingly he en-
listed in the seventh regiment, commanded by
Colonel Brooks of Medford.

He was with his company in the siege of Fori

136 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Catskill, where they endured great suffering from
cold and starvation, until at last relieved by the
arrival of General Washington, who was overjoyed
on finding them unexpectedly alive, and holding
the fort..

He served faithfully until the close of the war,
receiving a pension. He afterwards married an
Indian woman and estabHshed a home at Canton,
Massachusetts. His wife survived him, dying in
1852, having lived more than five score years.

Jeremy Jonah (colored) also served valiantly in
the same Regiment, afterwards obtaining a pen-
sion. He lived near Seymour Burr, and the two
old comrades often made a night of it, after the
manner of veterans, fighting their battles over
again.

On August 16, 1777, the "Green Mountain
Boys," aided by troops from New Hampshire and
a few from Massachusetts, commanded by General
Stark, captured the left wing of the British army
near Bennington. When the prisoners, to the
number of between seven and eight hundred, were
collected to be tied on either side of a rope, it
was found to be too short. The General called
for more, but there was none at hand. In this
emergency the patriotic wife of Hon. Moses Rob-
inson stepped forward and said: "General, I
will take down the last bedstead in the house and
present the rope to you on one condition. When
the prisoners are all tied to the rope, you shall
permit my Negro man to harness up my old mare
and hitch the rope to the whiffietree, mount the
mare, and conduct the British and Tory prisoners
out of town." The General willingly accepted Mrs.

A NEW CENTURY 137-

Robinson's proposition. The Negro mounted the
mare, grinning from ear to ear, and thus con^
ducted the left wing of the British army into Mas-
sachusetts, on their road to Boston.

The following instance of Negro wit is often
told. After Cornwallis surrendered at York-
town, an acquaintance of his, a colored soldier,
stepped up to him quite elated, and remarked:
"You used to be called Cornwallis, but it is Corn-
wallis no longer; it must now be Cobwallis, for
General Washington has shelled off all the corn."

The gallant historian is proud to record the he-
roic deed of Molly Pitcher, whose husband was
killed in the battle of Monmouth, and she took
his place at the cannon, until the end of that bat-
tle. But here is the record of a black heroine who
faithfully discharged all the duties of a soldier for
nearly a year and a half.

The following extract is a copy of one of the
Resolutions of the General Court of Massachusetts
during the session of 1 791-2: — "XXIII. Resolu-
tion on the petition of Deborah Gannett, granting
her ;^34 for services rendered in the Continental
army.

"On the petition of Deborah Gannett, praying
for compensation for services performed in the
late army of the United States. Whereas, it ap-
pears to this Court that the said Deborah Gannett
enlisted under the name of Robert Shurtliff in
Captain Webb's company in the 4th Massachusetts
Regiment, on May 20th, 1782, and did actually
perform the duty of a soldier, in the late army of
the United States, to the 23rd day of October,
1783, for which she has received no compensa-

138 A NEW NEGRO FOR

tion; and whereas it further appears that the said
Deborah Gannett exhibited an extraordinary in-
stance of female heroism, by discharging the duties
of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time
preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsus-
pected and unblemished, and was discharged from
the service with a fair and honorable cbaractei •
therefore, Resolved, That the treasurer of this
commonwealth be, and hereby is, directed to issue
his note to the said Deborah for the sum of thirty-
four pounds, bearing interest from October 23,
1788."

Prince Richards was a pensioned Revolutionary
veteran, of East Bridgewater. When a slave he
learned to write with a charred stick, thus show-
ing a burning desire for learning, even against the
command of his master, and perhaps, the law of
the state.

At the close of the war, John Hancock pre-
sented the colored company called "The Bucks"
with a beautiful and appropriate banner, bearing
his initials, as a token of his appreciation of their
courage and patriotism during the struggle. "The
• Bucks," under command of Colonel Middleton,
marched through Boston, halting in front of the
Hancock mansion on Beach Street, where the
Governor and his son united in presenting the
banner.

One of. the most brilliant exploits of the Revo-
lution was the capture of Stony Point by Mad
Anthony Wayne. But it must not be forgotten
that the countersign and password, "The Fort
is Ours," was obtained by the shrewdness of a
patriotic Negro who was in the habit oC selling

A NEW CENTURY 139

strawberries to the British. This same Negro
guided the troops through the inky darkness, to the
causeway over the marsh, around the foot of the
hill. Then going in advance up the hill, he gave
the countersign to the sentinel and engaged him
in a friendly conversation, always keeping his
back down the hill, until he was suddenly seized
from behind and gagged; the rest was easy.

The historian will tell us that Washington
planned, and Wayne executed this glorious exploit;
but we maintain that but for this nameless black
hero, the impregnable Stony Point could not have
been taken.

We also read of the brig on which Jack Grove
(colored)was steward; while sailing from the West
Indies to Portland in 18 12, it was captured by a
French vessel, whose commander placed a guard
on board. Jack urged his commander to make an
effort to retake the ship, but the captain saw no
hope. Again he urged him, saying: "Captain
McLellan, I can take her myself if you will only
let me go ahead " But the captain was rathe*-
cowardly and checked him, warning him not to
hint such a thing, as there was danger in it. But
Jack, disappointed and disgusted with him, though,
not daunted, rallied the men on his own hook.
Captain McLellan and the rest, inspired by his ex-
ample of courage and leadership, joined them, and
the attempt resulted in victory. They weighed
anchor and took the vessel into Portland. The
owner of the brig offered Jack fifty hogsheads of
molasses for his brave deed; but Jack demanded
one half of the brig, which being denied, he em-
ployed two Boston lawyers and brought suit. We

I40 A NEW NEGRO FOR

were unable to learn how the case terminated.

The artist has vied with the historian in pro-
claiming the fact that the black men were among
the bravest of the brave, with Perry in the squad-
ron fight of Lake Erie, and Jackson at New Or-
leans. What student of history has not read Jack-
son's eloquent tribute to his brave colored fellow
soldiers, after that glorious victory which they
helped him to gain?

In the Chicago Tribune of February 26, 1894,
Simon Young said in reply to the proposition of
the Knights of Labor to deport the Negroes to
Africa: "We are part and parcel of this country.
Why, only to-day we buried from No. 3331 Dear-
born Street old Captain Jackson, a Mexican war
veteran, whose father fought in the war of 18 12,
and his grandfather worked a musket in the Revo-
lutionary set-to. Our blood and brawn and brain
helped to make this country. This is our home,
and we're going to stay at home." Rev. Peter
Williams of New York said on one occasion: "We
are natives of this land; we ask only to be treated
as well as foreigners. Not a few of our fathers
suffered and bled to purchase its independence;
we ask only to be treated as well as those who
fought against it. We have toiled to cultivate it,
and raise it to its present prosperous condition;
we ask only to share equal privileges with those
who come from distant lands to enjoy the fruits of
our labor."

Let us smother all the wrongs we have endured.
Let us forget the past. If we are brethren let
us yield ourselves to charity, and let us concede
the fact that many times have our dusky brothers

A NEW CENTURY 141

shown their power, their energy, their skill, in
behalf of their friends, their masters, their country !
Can we be so thoughtless — yea, so heartless as to
begrudge them a place, a home in this broad land
of ours for which they have fought, bled, and
many of them died to save?

CHAPTER IX.

SLAVERY AND THE CONSTITUTION AND
DECLARATION OF INDE-
PENDENCE.

The noble heroes and patriots who survived
the Revolutionary struggle, in which one of the
main issues was "equal right to all and exclusive
privileges to none," must have been impressed
with the inconsistency of holding their fellow men
in cruel bondage. Certain it is Vermont separated
from New York in 1777, and in framing her state
constitution she forever prohibited slavery. How-
ever, Pennsylvania, through the influence of the
Quakers, was the first of the original thirteen colo-
nies to abolish the system, which she did by adopt-
ing a measure of gradual emancipation in 1780.
A little later in the same year Massachusetts abol-
ished slavery by her state constitution.

In 1784 Jefferson proposed an ordinance to con
gress, prohibiting slavery in all the western countr .
above the parallel of 31 north latitude, to go int^

142

'-■ii

DR. A. R. ABBOTT,

Prominent Physician of Toronto, Ont.. and One o! the Eight

Colored Surgeons Commissioned as Surgeon in

the United States Army by President Lincoln.

143

144 A NEW NEGRO FOR

effect after the year 1800. To his infinite regret
and lasting sorrow, this was lost by one vote.
This great statesman afterwards wrote concerning
it: "The voice of a single individual would have
prevented this abominable crime. Heaven will not
always be silent; the friends to the rights of hu-
man nature will in the end prevail."

When the constitution was adopted, the leading
question considered was, how to obtain a harmo-
nious union of all the colonies; how to fuse these
distinct governments, with different interests, into
one strong government. Weakened as they were
by the long and bloody war with the Mother Coun-
try; bankrupt and almost discouraged, they were
willing for harmony and unity on almost any
terms. Accordingly, we find the framers of the
constitution compromising and using ambiguous
language in regard to slavery right in the consti-
tution itself.

The words slave, slavery, or Negro, are syste-
matically avoided, and they are spoken of as "per-
sons bound to service," and "three-fifths of all
other persons." But it nowhere says how bound,
and an honest constitutional judge construing this
clause to harmonize with the Declaration of In-
dependence (which preceded and was in a sense
the basis of the constitution), would certainly have
decided that "bound to service" meant in equity,
"bound by contract to service," not forced under
the lash, without afoy contract, and for the entire
benefit of the so-called master class.

The framers of the constitution differed widely
as to whether the Negroes should be regarded as
persons or property.? It was finally settled that

A NEW CENTURY 145

they were neither absolutely the one nor the other,

but partook of both qualities; and it was provided
that five slaves should count as three freemen,
in the apportionment for representatives and for
direct taxation. As an expounder of the compro-
mise on this basis said, the slave was considered
"as divested of two-fifths of ^the man." This is
why the constitution was claimed by both sides
in the "irrepressible conflict." This instrument
was necessarily compromising as touching slavery,
but we should be very charitable in reviewing it,
when we consider that an unconditional pro-slav-
ery, or anti-slavery constitution, would not have
been adopted by the members of the constitution,
nor ratified by the different states. The leadership
of Washington and the wisdom of Franklin were
strained to their utmost before this question was
finally settled by compromise, in the constitutional
convention.

Even then, as might have been expected, slavery
would not remain settled, for while not strictly in
the constitution, it was not expunged from it, and
proved to be a veritable "Old Man of the Sea,"
riding on the back of the constitution, seeking to
strangle it, until, drunken with the wine of its own
violence, it was shaken off and crushed in the war
of the Rebellion.

Theodore Parker illustrates slavery and the con-
stitution as follows: "There is an old story told
by Hebrew rabbis, that before the flood there
was an enormous giant called Gog. After the flood
had got into the full tide of successful experiment,
and every man was drowned except those taken into
the ark, Gog came striding along after Noah, feel-

146 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ing his way with a cane, as long as a mast of the
"Great Eastern." The water had only come up
to his girdle. It was then over the hill-tops and
still rising — raining night and day. The giant hailed
the Patriarch. Noah put his head out of the win-
dow, and said, 'Who is there.'"' 'It is I,' said Gog.
'Take us in; it is wet outside!' 'No,' said Noah;
'you're to big; no room. Besides, you've a bad
character. You may get on top if you like,' and
he closed the window. 'Go to thunder, ' said Gog;
•I will ride after all.' And he strode after him,
wading through the waters; and mounting on top
of the ark, with one leg over the larboard and the
other over the starboard side, he steered it just as
he pleased and made it rough weather inside.

"Now in making the constitution, we did not
care to take in Slavery in express terms. It looked
ugly. We allowed it to get on top astride, and
now it steers us just where it pleases." Hence the
question. Could slavery find shelter behind the con-
stitution of the United States .^^ received almost as
many different answers as there were men at-
tempting it. To this great question the abolition-
ists, led by Garrison, replied, "Yes, therefore
away with the constitution." "Yes," replied the
anti-abolitionists, "therefore let slavery alone."
"No," said the anti-slavery Whigs,"for the consti-
tution is not a pro-slavery instrument." "No,"
said Gerrit Smith, "for slavery, in the nature of
the case, cannot find a shelter behind anything
that bears the name of law; the constitution that
offered shelter to slavery would have no validity.
The question whether or no slavery finds shelter
behind the constitution, is wanting in pertinency;
there is no such question."

A NEW CENTURY 147

This was substantially the view of Frederick
Douglass, who defended it against all gainsayers,
with great boldness and power.

Whatever the constitution might be, no one
could question the fact that the Declaration of In-
dependence, the Magna Charta of American Lib-
erty, was anti-slavery, when it published to the
world the following glorious principles: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Libet'ty and the pursuit of
Happiness, That to secure these rights, govern-
ments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed."

Remember the equality and liberty were not
limited to the white, black or red men, for all were
in the colonies at that time, but it emphatically
says all men; it includes all races, and excludes
none. The pursuit of happiness was also guaranteed
unto all men, by this instrument, but was there
any happiness for the poor souls driven like
galley-slaves, and treated like beasts of burden?

Moreover, we read that "Governments are insti-
tuted among men, deriving their powers from the
consent of the governed." When did the Negro
ever give his consent, or, indeed, when was he ever
consulted as to how he should be governed from
the time he was kidnaped by piratical man-
stealers in Africa, until he escaped their clutches
at death.?

At its conclusion we find this passage: "And
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,

I4B A NEW NEGRO FOR

we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." In view of the
treatment the Negro received, mainly because he
was black, this reliance on the "protection of
Divine Providence" appears sacrilegious, and this
pledge of "sacred honor," a farce.

Can it be that this palladium of Liberty, penned
by the immortal Jefferson, was superseded by the
constitution and thrown aside as a cast-off gar-
ment.? It certainly appears so. For if any re-
gard had been paid to this Declaration of Inde-
pendence, slavery would not have cursed the na-
tion a single year. For it was an unmitigated
curse, its advocates being judges. Henry Clay
himself said, "Slavery is a curse to the master
and a wrong to the slave." Its cloven foot was
shown even in drafting this important instrument.
It may not be known to all our readers that part
of the original document drawn up by the com-
mittee consisting of Jefferson, Adams, Livingston,
Sherman and Franklin, was rejected and stricken
out in deference to slavery, but such is an un-
doubted historical fact.

The first draft of the Declaration of Independ-
ence can be seen in the American Philosophical
Society of Philadelphia, an institution founded by
Franklin. It contains this forcible language:
"He," (King George III.), "has waged cruel war
against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of
a distant people, who never offended him, capti-
vating and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their
transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the

A NEW CENTURY 149

opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the
Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to
keep open market where men should be bought and
sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppress-
ing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to re-
strain this execrable commerce."

Mr. William Chambers, the English traveler
and author, considers this original draft of our
Declaration the greatest arch^ological curiosity
in America.

Thus a union embracing the Southern colonies
could only be obtained by withdrawing this scath-
ing rebul^e, and prostituting Hberty to slavery.
In fact, we are forced to the conclusion that the
Declaration of Independence, contrary to the de-
sign of those who drafted it, never had the valid-
ity of law. Though announcing the doctrine of
human equality and inalienable rights, it proved
to be, as far as effectiveness was concerned, only a
respectable piece of buncombe, simply words. Cer-
tain it was, when the surrender at Yorktown ended
our allegiance to the mother country, we had sim-
ply exchanged masters. This country was no
longer owned and governed by King George and
his Parliament, but from the day of the surrender
at Yorktown, 178 1, to the day of a still greater
surrender at Appomattox in 1865, a period of nearly
eighty-five years, this country was ruled with a
rod of iron by a domineering minority, in the form
of an aristocracy of Southern slave holders, aided
by Northern sympathizers. Hence the surrender
at Appomattox secured liberty to the white man
at the North as well as the black slave at the
South.

ISO A NEW NEGRO FOR

Since then the Declaration has meant what its
language would imply, and this glorious old ex-
punged paragraph should be restored. At the
time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution
in 1787, it was generally believed that slavery
would die out in all the states. A man would not
have been laughed to scorn had he predicted that
Maryland, Delaware and Virginia would be free
states in his lifetime. Seven states had already
abolished slavery, or were preparing to do so.
And it must be borne in mind that the constitu-
tion abolished the African slave trade after the
year 1808, though why this clause was never en-
forced is not apparent. Certain it is, public senti-
ment was gaining ground against slavery even in
Georgia, as is shown by the fact that one of her
representatives stated on the floor of the House,
without contradiction, "that there was not a man
in Georgia who did not wish there were no slaves,
and everybody believed they were a curse to the
country."

Several influences contributed to mould public
opinion against slavery at this time. First in
order of importance, as we have already seen, was
the Declaration of Independence. Second, the
bravery of the colored soldiers in the war of In-
dependence. Having aided his master in break-
ing the yoke of oppression, it was inconsistent for
the black man to continue a servant in

"The land of the free and the home of the brave."

Third, the opposition of abolition societies, and
religious bodies, particularly the Quakers, who
were most aggressive; the Methodists, who resolved

A NEW CENTURY 151

in general conference that "slave-keeping was hurt-
ful to society, and contrary to the laws of God,
man and nature;" and the Baptists especially in
Rhode Island. Fourth, the influence and exam-
ple of such fathers of the Republic as Washing-
ton, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton and
Madison. Fifth, the fact that it had been demon-
strated that slavery did not pay.

Washington and Jefferson both opposed the
idea of buying or selling Negroes off the planta-
tions to which they belonged, and both proved by
their personal experience that a large number of
Negroes on a Virginia plantation was an economi-
cal failure. Supporting his numerous slaves brought
Jefferson to poverty in his old age. Washington,
in a private letter written while President, ex-
presses an opinion that slavery must soon be abol-
ished in Virginia and Maryland, and as is well
Inown, manumitted his own slaves by his last
rvill.

Neither Jefferson nor Adams had any part in
framing the constitution, as they were both ab-
sent at foreign courts. They held identically the
same views on the slavery question, for in a letter
written about this time Jefferson expressed a
strong desire that the slave trade, and slavery itself,
might be abolished; while John Adams never
owned a slave during his life, because of his ab-
horrence to slavery.

Franklin, as president of ths Pennsylvania abo-
lition society, earnestly besought Congress to give
immedia-^.e attention to the subject of slavery.
He further petitioned, "that you will be pleased
to countenance the restoration of liberty to those

152 A NEW NEGRO FOR

lirihappy men, who are degraded into perpetual
bondage; and that you will discourage every
sspecies of traffic in persons of our fellowmen."

Hamilton, while secretary of the New York abo-
lition society, received a request from La Fayette,
proposing himself as a fellow member of his soci-
ety. And Madison in the constitutional con-
vention urged the members to strike out the section
delaying the prohibition of the slave trade until the
year 1808, saying: "Twenty years will produce
all the mischief that can be apprehended from the
liberty to import slaves. So long a term will b3
more dishonorable to the American character th'^n
to say nothing about it in the Constitution."

Of course such statesmen and patriots as these
would create a strong public sentiment against
slavery, which was fast spreading over the entire
nation. But an event occurred in 1793 which
turned the tide in favor of slavery, and benefited
the planter more than the Fugitive Slave law.

"What," asked Webster, "created the new feel-
ing in favor of slavery in the South, so that it be-
came a cherished institution, no evil, no scourge,
but great religious, social and moral blessing?"

To answer the question in a sentence we would
say, the invention of the cotton-gin. This was
due to the mechanical skill of Eli Whitney of
Massachusetts. Young Whitney, while engaged in
school-teaching, was making his home at the hos-
pitable mansion of Mrs. General Nathaniel Green,
on her Georgia plantation, where he perfected his
invention with the aid of his kind partner, Mrs.
Green.

Prior to this invention it was the work of

A NEW CENTURY 153

a man for one whole day to separate a pound
of cotton fiber from the seed; but by the use of
this machine one man could do the work of fifty
or more.

Undoubtedly the wealth of the South was aug-
mented by this invention more than any other,
or perhaps all others combined. Instead of being
grateful to Whitney for conferring untold wealth
upon them, some neighboring planters broke into
the house where it was kept and stole his inven-
tion; so that much of his life was embittered by
tedious and expensive lawsuits for the recovery
of his rights. Whitney, however, invented a gun
after this from which he realized a fortune. The
cotton-gin, by making slave labor profitable,
tended to rivet the chains more firmly on these
unfortunate people. In the same year of this in-
vention, a duty of three cents a pound was placed
on cotton, which stimulated its production.

The slave territory was extended by the pur-
chase of Louisiana in 1803, of Florida in 18 19,
and the annexation of Texas in 1845. Slavery
had been quickened in the border states, Mary-
land, Virginia and Kentucky, which had been in
fair way to abolish it altogether as unprofitable in
the raising of grain, tobacco and live stock Sad
to relate, some of the most conscientious Chris-
tian people of these states, and the District of
Columbia, engaged in the disreputable business of
raising slaves for the Southern market, the same
as they did mules or cattle, and kept this up as
one of the main sources of weath until slavery
was overthrown.

The first Fugitive Slave law was passed in 1793,

154 ^ NEIV NEGRO FOR

the same year of Whitney's cotton-gin. It grew
out of the fact that a free Negro had been kid-
naped in Pennsylvania, by three white ruffians,
and carried to Virginia. When the Governor of
Pennsylvania could not get him from the Governor
of Virginia, he called the attention of President
Washington to it, who in turn brought it before
Congress, and urged them to take some action in
the matter. The result was the passage of this
first Fugitive Slave Bill. But the record does not
show w^hat became of the poor kidnaped free
Negro.

Such laws were not designed to give the Negro
any protection, but were all in sympathy with the
supposed master.

It may be said that from this time on the ag-
gressive power was ever ready to "lengthen her
cords, and strengthen her stakes," and extend her
boundaries, by fair means if she could, foul if she
must; and the latter was usually adopted. Her
motto seems to have been "rule or ruin."

Everything was forced to bow submissive to the
Peculiar Institution. Her usual threat which she
hung suspended over the North like .\-=imocle's
sword, was, "Do this or we will seced:;!" Even
the matchless Daniel Webster had proven recre-
ant to his early principles and bowed the knee to
this Baal, in his eagerness for a Presidential nomi-
nation; while his no less distinguished contem-
porary, Henry Clay, living midway between the
two sections, was ever ready to step in between
the belligerents with a cunningly devised compro-
mise, as one-sided as that of the two boys who
found a knife jointly, and decided that the smaller

A NEW CENTURY 155

boy should own, and the larger should carry and
use it.

Even in the North there were many open sym-
pathizers with slavery, while others were disposed
to apologize for it; but those in the main were
either concerned in manufacturing cotton, or ig-
norant of the heartless cruelty of the institution.

The national capital was located on slave terri-
tory, and her slave-pen became a great market,
where human cattle were daily disposed of to the
highest bidder, and was one of the most infamous
in the nation. The story is told of a woman who
escaped from it, and was pursued by four men
across the long bridge. She was fast gaining on
them, when they shouted to others on the Vir-
ginia side, who ran to that end of the bridge to
intercept her. Seeing this, she uttered a wild cry
of despair and threw herself into the river, pre-
ferring death to falling into the heartless hands of
her pursuers Another woman and two children
fled for protection to the steps of the capitol
building, and while the emblem of liberty floated
from its dome, she was forced to the slave-pen.
Perhaps the most baneful feature of slavery, from
a moral standpoint, was the unbridled license it
gave to amalgamation. I don't mean theoreti-
cally— only the despised abolitionists were accused
of that — but real practical amalgamation, such as
men in power, and the most prominent statesmen
were notoriously guilty of. Well might Thomas
Jefferson say: "The best blood of Virginia runs
in the veins of her slaves." Jane Grey Swisshelm,
in her "Half a Century," says: "One of Presi-
dent Tyler's daughters ran away with the man she

156 A NEW NEGRO FOR

loved, in order that they might be married, but
for this they must reach foreign soil. A young
lady of the White House could not marry the
man of her choice in the United States. The lovers
were captured, and she was brought to His Ex-
cellency, her father, who sold her to a slave trader.
From that slave-pen she was taken to New Or-
leans, by a man who expected to get twenty-five
hundred dollars for her on account of her great
beauty."

The same author gives some evidence that Har-
rison and Taylor both preceded Lincoln as vic-
tims of Southern plots. As it is rather startling,
or plausible, to say the least of it, we will quote it
in full. Said she of her visit to Washington dur-
ing Taylor's administration, "Mr Taylor, the Whig
President, had pronounced the Fugitive Slave Bill
an insult to the North, and stated his determi-
nation to veto it. Fillmore, the Vice-President,
was in favor of it. So Freedom looked to a man
owning three hundred slaves, while slavery relied
on a Northern man with Southern principles.
President Taylor was hated by the South, was
denounced as a traitor to his section, while South-
ern men and women fawned upon and flattered

Fillmore When it became known

that the Fugitive Slave Bill could pass Congress,
but could not command a two-thirds vote to carry
it over the assured veto of President Taylor, he
ate a plate of strawberries, just as President
Harrison had done when he stood in the way
of Southern policy, and like his great predecessor,
Taylor died opportunely, when Mr. Fillmore
became puresident and signed the bill."

A NEW CENTURY 157

She visited Charles Sumner while he was in the
Alleghany Mountains, recovering from the Brooks
assault. Referring to it, she said: "In talking
with Mr. Sumner during that visit, I learned that
the same doctor attended both President Harrison
and President Taylor in their last illness, and used
his professional authority to prevent their friends
seeing them until the fatal termination of their
illness was certain. Also, that it was that same
doctor who was within call when Brooks made his
assault on Sumner; took charge of the case, and
made an official statement that the injury was
very slight, gave it a superficial dressing and
sought to exclude every one from the room of his
patient. Said Sumner: *I shuddered when I
recovered consciousness, and found this man be-
side me.' He dismissed him promptly, and did
not hesitate to say that he believed he would not
have recovered under his treatment. When the
South seceded, this useful man left Washington
and joined the Confederacy."

This is certainly a very strong chain of circum-
stantial evidence that Lincoln and Garfield were
not our only martyred Presidents.

The following is from a letter written by the
celebrated Irish orator and statesman, Daniel
O'Connell. It was written at Dublin, October
nth, 1843, to his fellow countrymen in America,
concerning slavery, which they were disposed at
that time to endorse or apologize for: "You say
the Negroes are naturally an inferior race. That
is a totally gratuitous assertion on your part. In
America you can have no opportunity of seeing
ilie Negro educated. On the contrary, in most of

158 A NEW NEGRO FOR

your states it is a crime — sacred Heaven! — a crime
to educate even a free Negro! How, then, can you
judge of the Negro race, when you see them de-
spised and condemned by educated classes — reviled
and looked down upon as inferior? The Negro
race has naturally some of the finest qualities.
They are naturally gentle, generous, humane, and
very grateful for kindness. They are brave and
as fearless as any other of the race of human be-
ings; but the blessings of education are kept from
them, and they are judged of, not as they would
be with proper cultivation, but as they are ren-
dered by cruel and debasing oppression.

"It is as old as the days of Homer, who truly
asserts that 'the day which sees a man a slave takes
away half his worth.' Slavery actually brutalizes
human beings. It was about sixty years ago when
one of the Sheiks, not far south of Fez, in Morocco,
who was in the habit of accumulating white slaves,
upon being strongly remonstrated with by a
European Power, gave for his reply that, by his
own experience he found it quite manifest that
white men were of an inferior race, intended by
nature for slaves; and he produced his own bru-
talized white slaves to illustrate the truth of his
assertion. And a case of an American with a
historic name — John Adams — is quite familiar.
Some twenty-five years ago — not more — John
Adams was the sole survivor of an American crew
wrecked on the African coast. He was taken
into the interior as a slave of an Arab chief. He
was only for three years a slave, and the English
and American consuls having been informed of a
white man's slavery, claimed him and obtained

A NEW CENTURY 159

his liberation. In the short space of three years
he had become completely brutalized; he had
completely forgotten the English language, with-
out having acquired the native tongue. He spoke
a kind of gabble, as unintellectual as the dialects
of most of your Negro slaves; and many months
elapsed before he recovered his former habits
and ideas.

"We cannot bring ourselves to believe that you
breathed your natal air in Ireland — Ireland, the
first of all the nations on the earth that abolished
the dealing in slaves. The slave trade of that
day was curious enough, a slave trade in British
youths — Ireland, that never was stained with Negro
slave trading — Ireland, that never committed
offense against the men of color — Ireland, that
never fitted out a single vessel for the traffic in
blood on the African coast.

"We ask you to exert yourselves in every
possible way to put an end to the internal
slave trade of the states. The breeding of
slaves for sale is probably the most immoral
and debasing practice ever known in the world.
It is a crime of the most heinous kind, and
if there were no other crime committed by
the Americans, this alone would place the advo-
cates, supporters and practicers of American
slavery in the lowest grade of criminals It is no
excuse to allege that the Congress is restricted
from emancipating slaves by one geneial law.
Each particular slave state has that power within
its own precincts; and there is every reason to be
convinced that Maryland and Virginia would have
followed the example of New York, and long ago

i6o A NEW NEGRO FOR

abolished slavery, but for the diabolical practice
of 'raising,' as you call it, slaves for the Southern
market of pestilence and death.

"Irishmen! sons of Irishmen! descendants of the
kind of heart and affectionate disposition, think,
oh! think only with pity and compassion on your
colored fellow creatures in America. Offer them
the hand of kindly help. Soothe their sorrowa.
Scathe their oppressor. Join with your country-
men at home in one cry of horror against the op-
pressor; in one cry of sympathy with the enslaved
and oppressed,

'Till prone in the dust slavery shall be hurl'd,
Its name and nature blotted from the world.'

"Irishmen, I call upon you to join in crushing
slavery, and in giving liberty to every man and
every caste, creed, or color.

"D. O'C."

These soul-stirring sentiments are quite differ-
ent to those of another Irishman, who was in the
act of marrying a Planter's widow. When the
minister asked, "Do you take this woman to be
your lawfully wedded wife.?" he replied, "Yis,your
riverance, and the Naygurs too."

Henry Wilson, in his "Rise and Fall of the
Slave Power," informs us that when the news of
the French Revolution of 1848, in which the King
was deposed and driven into exile, reached Wash-
ington, it was the occasion of great rejoicing.
President Polk sent a message to Congress in
which he announced the event, and stated that
"the world has seldom witnessed a more interest-
ing and sublime spectacle than the peaceful rising
of the French people, resolved to secure for them-
selves enlarged liberty,"

A NEW CENTURY i6i

On the same day a series of resolutions were
introduced into the House expressing satisfaction
that "the sentiment of self-government is com-
mending itself to the honorable consideration of the
more intelligent of nations;" and announcing the
hope that "down-trodden humanity may succeed
in breaking down all forms of tyranny and oppres-
sion;" and tendering their "warmest sympathies to
the people of France and Italy in their present
struggle."

The following amendment was offered by Mr.
Ashmun of Massachusetts, that "we especially
see an encouraging earnest of their success in
the decree which pledges the government of France
to early measures for the immediate emancipation
of all slaves in the colonies." The following
amendment to the amendment was offered by Mr.
Schenck of Ohio, "recognizing, as we do, that
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude."

This was followed by a speech from Mr. Hillard
of Alabama, in which he said. "I solemnly believe
that the time has come when kingcraft has lost its
hold upon the human mind. The world is wak-
ing from its deep slumber, and mankind begin to
see that the right to govern belongs, not to
crowned kings, but to the great masses."

He was not ready to recognize the doctrine of
human equality per se. He referred to Mr. Ash-
mun's amendment as "a matter which does not
belong to it," and defiantly asserted that all over
the South there was a determination on the part
of the masters to maintain the claim on their
slaves, "with a courage and firmness which nothing

i62 A NEW NEGRO FOR

can intimidate or shame." The same inconsis-
tency was displayed by Mr. Haskell of Tennessee,
who stated that the kingdoms of Europe ''were up-
heaving beneath the throb of liberty which was
animating the bosoms of the people, and that it
was from this country that they had caught the
flame;" he then declared that he was "sick and tired
of this continual thrusting in this subject of slav-
ery," which tended "to stop the progress of free-
dom, to injure this government itself, and put out
this light toward which with hope were turned the
eyes of the down-trodden world. "

The handful of anti-slavery members made gal-
lant light defending their principles, and pointing
out the gross inconsistency of singing p^ans over
the triumph of liberty in France, and at the same
instant expressing a determination to perpetuate
a more cruel and despotic tyranny in this Republic.

Mr. Giddings, seeing this inconsistency, said:
"Look from that v>^indow, and you will see a slave-
pen, whose gloomy walls in mute but eloquent
terms proclaim the hypocrisy of the deed," After
reminding the House that all this is sustained by
laws passed by Congress, he continued, "Will not
the French cast back all such pretended sympathy
with abhorrence? Will they not look with disgust
on such deception and hypocrisy when they see a
nation of slave dealers tendering their sympathy
to a free people.^"

About this time seventy-seven slaves of Washing-
ton attempted to gain for themselves that freedom
they had just heard so highly eulogized for others.
They doubtless reasoned that if freedom was a
glorious boon for the French peasant — and had

A NEW CENTURY 163

not the Southern statesmen said so? — it could not
be wrong for them to desire it.

An old gentleman in Kentucky advised his neigh-
bor's sons to enlist for the Mexican war; but was
terribly worried when two of his own sons took
his advice. So in this case, liberty was a glorious
thing for their neighbors across the ocean, but not
to be even thought of in this (so-called) land of
the free. So the schooner Pearl, in which these
slaves embarked for freedom, was overtaken at
the mouth of the Potomac, and forced to return
to Washington with its unfortunate passengers.
Having been committed to jail, they fell into the
hands of the merciless slave dealers and received
the dreaded doom of being sent South.

Among these poor victims of man's cruelty and
lust, was the beautiful quadroon, Emily Russell,
a sweet, amiable, gentle Christian girl. She, with
the others, was suffered to be bought by the cruel
Baltimore slave dealers, who fixed her ransom at
eighteen hundred dollars on the shameful plea
that she was the most beautiful woman in all that
country. She was consigned to the South. But the
sun of her life was about to set below the horizon,
and death came to her relief in all the vigor and
freshness of girlhood, saving her from what prob-
ably would have been a life of misery, and causing
her mother to exclaim: "The Lord be thanked.
He has heard my prayers at last."

Though ignorant, helpless, crushed in spirit,
weighed down with hardship and cruel bereave-
ment,they were still human, and as true and affec-
tionate hearts best within their breasts as any that
throbbed beneath lighter skins.

CHAPTER X.

SLAVERY UNMASKED.

We would gladly pass by this chapter in silence,
for it must be painful alike to writer and reader

But as the surgeon must harden his heart' while
he probes the wound, that he may apply a healing
lotion; so the historian must record the facts
however heart-rending, that he may perchance sug-
gest a remedy.

As has been stated, slaves were found to be
profitable for labor, only in the Southern states,
where the semi-tropical crops, rice, indigo, sugar
and cotton were produced. This includes those
states from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and
Missouri, southward. Then the question might be
asked, Why did not these four states either manu-
mit their slaves or sell them to the Southern plan-
ters, and thereby stop an unprofitable business, and
restrict the slave territory.? Simply "because the
love of money is the root of all evil." For while
slaves were not profitable in the border states for
labor, they were profitable for propagating the
race, increasing the numbers; and to have sold off
all the slaves of those states would have been to
kill the goose that laid the golden egg..

164

A NEW CENTURY 165

When it was found that the raising of grain, live
stock, and so forth, by slave labor was unprofit-
able, many slaves were sent South, where they
brought a high price; but enough were reserved
for cultivating the farms and to increase the num-
bers, so as to again flood the market. For, hor-
rible to relate, in the four border states and the
District of Columbia, the slaves themselves be-
came one of the large products cf export. Accord-
ing to "Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power
in America," "this traffic had become so enormous
that in 1836 it was estimated that the number sold
from the single state of Virginia was forty thou-
sand, yielding a return of twenty-four millions of
dcllars. It was in fact the great business, licensed
and protected by laws, advertised in the papers
and recognized as one of the branches of legiti-
mate production and trade." But of course there
were humane men even in the South, whose hearts
were grieved at the cruel traffic conducted around
them. They denounced in vehement and scathing
language a barbarous custom which tore the infant
from its mother's yearning breast, that the one
might be sold and the other left; scattering fam-
ilies, severing husbands and wives never to meet
again, until they met at the bar of a just God as
common accusers of an inhuman master. There
are times when ties of blood hold us but loosely;
still a day comes when nature asserts itself, and
no acquired affection has the pewter over us that is
wielded by the love we are born to; and we can
but appreciate the melancholy scene the song-writer
describes: —

1 66 A NEW NEGRO FOR

"I am thinking to-day of dem years dat's passed away,

When dey tied me up in bondage long ago;
In old Virginny state, it was there we separate,

And it fill my heart with misery and woe.
Dey took away my boy, he was his mother's joy,

From a baby in de cradle we him raise;
Oh! dey put us far apart and dey broke de old man's heart

In dem agonizing,cruel slavery days."

Even one of the governors of South Carolina,
in a message to the Legislature, denounced "this
remorseless and merciless traffic, the ceaseless
dragging along the streets and highways of a crowd
of suffering victims to minister to insatiable
avarice."

A Presbyterian synod of Kentucky refers to the
slave caufle often seen there as proclaiming "the
iniquity of our system." It adds, "There is not a
village that does not behold the sad procession of
manacled victims."

A Southern editor wrote of such a procession he
saw passing through his city, "with heavy, galling
chains riveted on their person, half naked, half
starved," traveling to the plantations of the South,
where "their miserable condition will be second
only to the wretched creatures in hell."

The pathetic scene as described by the following
verse was often enacted.

"One night I went to see her, but she's gone, the neighbors say,
The white man bound her with his chain;
They have taken her to Georgia for to wear her life away,
As she toils in the cotton and the cane."

A Baltimore journal of this jieriod said: - "Deal-
ing in slaves has become a large business; estab-
lishments are made in several places in Maryla^^d

..^^

DR. J. FRANK McKINLEY,

riraduate of the IMedical Department of the University of

Michigan; noted physician.

167

i68 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and Virginia, at which they are sold Hke cattle.
These places of deposit are strongly built, and well
supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and or-
namented with cow-skins, oftentimes bloody."

One of Virginia's most gifted sons of his day,
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, said in the Legislature
of that state, in 1832, that "the state was one
grand menagerie, where men are reared for the
market like oxen for the shambles." He even
considered the domestic slave trade much worse
than foreign; for in the latter, said he, "only
strangers in aspect, language and manner" are
taken; while in the former the master class sells
those he has "known from infancy, into a strange
country, among a strange people, subject to cruel
taskmasters." Evidently an extensive traffic was
carried on in slaves all through the South, as the
papers of that period were filled with such adver-
tisements as "Cash for Negroes," "Negroes for
sale," and "Negroes wanted."

By actual count, four thousand and one hundred
Negroes were advertised for sale in sixty-four
newspapers of the eight slave states in the last two
weeks of November, 1852. We have quoted thus
irom Southern authority; so also is the following
curious advertisement which appeared in the New
York Independent of March 1850, copied from the
Religious Herald, a Baptist paper of Richmond,
Virginia: "Who wants thirty-five thousand dol-
lars in property? I am desirous to spend the balance
of my life as a missionary, if the Lord perrnit,and
therefore offer for sale my farm, the vineyard ad-
jacent to Williamsburg and also

about forty servants, mostly young and likely, and

A NEW CENTURY 169

rapidly increasing in number and value." Truly
consistency is a jewel, but this good man (?) evi-
dently was a stranger to it.

Perhaps the most demorali;^ing phase of the slave
trade was the fact that fathers would often sell
foi the Southern market their own children with-
out the slightest compunctions of conscience. But
how were these poor creatures treated when once
they arrived at their destination on the Southern
plantations, weary and foot-sore, galled by their
heavy chains? All that these poor victims of un-
requited toil could expect to get out of this life
was food and clothing, and a place to shelter them,
and did they always get that? The Secretary of
the Treasury obtained a. report from forty-six sugar
plantations of Louisiana; according to this, the
cost of feeding and clothing an able-bodied slave
was thirty dollars per year. Olmstead, who has
traveled extensively through the South, estimates
that ten dollars would be necessary for clothing,
which would leave only twenty dollars for food,
or five and one-half cents per day. He then asks,
"Does the food of a first-rate laborer anywhere in
the free world cost less?" Corn-meal was the in-
variable article of food, though sometimes at rare
intervals, bacon, molasses or rice was provided.

A Louisiana cotton planter furnished De Bow,
author of "De Bow's Resources of the South and
West," an itemized estimate of the expense of a
cotton crop. In this the cost of feeding a hun-
dred slaves, furnishing the overseer's table, and
the hospital, was estimated at seven hundred and
fifty dollars for the year. This was seven dollars
and a half for each slave, or less than three cents

I70 A NEW NEGRO FOR

per day. From the same planter De Bow also
learned that the cost of furnishing shoes, clothes,
and beds for one hundred slaves, also sacks to
gather cotton, did not exceed seven hundred and
fifty dollars per annum. This statement accounts
for the fact that all the slaves on the cotton and
sugar plantations invariably looked ragged and
dirty. The supply of food for slaves was fixed by
the Legislature of several Southern states.
Louisiana required that meat should be furnished,
but this law became obsolete. North Carolina
fixed the daily allowance of corn. And yet to-
day Southern statesmen are fond of assuring us that
they have always "opposed all sumptuary laws."
It might be added that they prohibited any one
selling or giving whisky to their Negroes. But
since the war they have bitterly opposed Prohi-
bition as a sumptuary law.

In the cotton, sugar and rice districts the slaves
were systematically overworked. In South Car-
olina the legal limit of a day's work on a cotton
plantation was fixed at fifteen hours. But during
the picking season the slaves labored sixteen
hours under the driver's lash; while on the sugar
plantations of Lousiana, during the grinding season,
eighteen were exacted, often with no Sunday's
rest. Think of it, you free laborers, who very
properly draw the line at about half of this time,
with good wages and Sunday rest.

Patrick Henry said of the overseer of his day,
"They are the most abject, degraded, and unprin-
cipled race." Time and new conditions did not
improve them, for the historian Rhodes says of
them, "They were generally ignorant, frequently

A NEW CENTURY 171

intemperate, always despotic and brutal. Their
value was rated according to the size of the cot-
ton crop they made, and with that end in view
they spared not the slaves, who always worked
under the lash." Even Chancellor Harper, who
wrote a strong defense of slavery, says: "It is true
that the slave is driven to labor by stripes."
. The fact is demonstrated that the Negroes were
often overtasked to their permanent injury, from the
complaint made by Southern agricultural journalif
of the bad policy of thus wasting human property.
But nothing was said about the inhumanity of
thus killing slaves by abuse.

A stout Negro driver, chosen because of his un-
usual cruelty, followed each gang of working slaves,
urging them on with loud voice and the cracking
of his long whip.

A tradesman in Alabama told Olmstead that if
the overseers raise "plenty of cotton, the owners
never ask how many niggers they kill." Olmstead
also learned that "a determined and perfectly re-
lentless overseer could get almost any wages he
demanded, for when it . v.came known that such a
man had made more bales to the slave than his
competitors, every planter would try to get him."

The name Alabama means, "Here we rest," but
this certainly did not apply to the poor colored
people.

"If you don't work faster, or if you don't work
better, I will have you flogged," was often heard,
and seldom an idle threat.

In Olmstead's "Cotton Kingdom, "he quotes from
an overseer who said: "Why, sir, I wouldn't mind
killing a nigger more than I would a dog." Fannie

172 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Kemble is responsible for the statement, that the
sugar planters of Louisiana unhesitatingly avowed
that they found it upon the whole their most
profitable plan to work off (kill with labor) their
whole number of slaves about once in seven years
and renew the whole stock. They proceeded to
adopt this plan, as we have seen, by working dur-
ing the grinding season eighteen hours per day,
and seven days for a week, contrary to the laws
of God, man and nature.

Again quoting from Rhodes: "No one can won-
der that it was a painful sight to see slaves at work
in the cotton field. Their besotted and generally
repulsive expression, their brute-like countenances,
on which were painted stupidity, indolence, duplic-
ity, and sensuality; their listlessness; their dogged
action; the stupid, plodding, machine-like manner,
in which they labored, made a sorrowful picture
of man's inhumanity to man." General Sherman,
while living in Louisiana, observed that "the field
slaves were treated like animals."

Frederick Douglass, speaking of one period in his
life, said: "My natural elasticity was crushed; my
intellect languished; the disposition to read de-
parted; the cheerful spark that lingered about my
eye died out; the dark night of slavery closed in
upon me, and behold a man transformed to a
brute."

As is generally known, cotton was the main crop
raised by slave labor, and the great hope of the
Southern Confederacy. Their leaders believed
two errors, and from these drew a f^lse conclusion.
First; they said, cotton cannot be grown without
slave labor; and second, England cannot exist

A NEW CENTURY 173

without Southern cotton, ergo, England must
come to ''the gigantic relief" of the Southern Con-
federacy.

According to De Bow's estimate in 1850 of the
three million one hundred and seventy-seven
thousand slaves in the South, one million eight
hundred thousand were employed in cotton cul-
ture. The motto of the planter seemed to be,
"Let us buy more Negroes to raise more cotton, to
buy more Negroes to raise mere cotton," and so
on ad infinitmn. The same year there were only
three hundred and forty-seven thousand, five hun-
dred and twenty-five slave holders, who with their
families numbered about two millions. The entire
white population of the South was six million one
hundred and twenty-five thousand; consequently
less than one third of the white people of the slave
states could have been in any way benefited by
this "peculiai institution," and more than seven
millions bond and free either labored for them, or
were controlled by this aristocracy.

The curse of slavery fell hardest upon the wom-
en, those who were least able to bear it, as the
following quotations from Fanny Kemble's Jour-
nal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation will
show. Said she: "On my husband's first vi^it to
his estate he found that the men and the women
who labored in the fields had the same tasks to
perform. This was a noble admission of female
equality, was it not? And thus it had been on the
estate for many years past. He, of course, altered
the distribution of the work, diminishing the quan-
tity done by the women." Fanny Kemble had a
Vv^oman's sympathy for the slave women of herhus*

174 ^ NEIV NEGRO FOR

band's plantation, and did all in her power to al-
leviate their condition. She noted with burning
shame the general lewdness and gross immorality
prevalent among the slaves.

The increasing of families was indirectly encour-
aged without the slightest restriction. A woman
seemed to think that "the more she added to her
master's property by bringing new slaves into the
world, the more claim she would have upon his con-
sideration and good will. This was perfectly evi-
dent to me from the meritorious air with which the
women always made haste to inform me of the
number of children they had, and the frequent
occasions on which the older slaves would direct
my attention to their children, exclaiming, 'Look,
missis! plenty little niggers for you and little
missis!'"

Sad to relate, this idea seems to have been instilled
into the slaves almost irom childhood, as the follow-
ing from the same author shows: "On my return
home 1 was met by a child (as she seemed to me)
carrying a baby, in whose behalf she begged me
for some clothes. On making some inquiry I was
amazed to find that the child was her own; she
said she was married and fourteen years old; she
looked much younger even than that, poor creatuie.
Her mother, who came up while I was talking to
her, said she did not herself know the girl's age;
how horribly brutish it all did seem, to be sure!"

A short time after this several slave women
called on her at the great house; and this is wh^.i
she says of two of them: "Among others, a poor
woman called Mile, who could hardly stand for
pain and swelling in her limbs; she had brought

A NEW CENTURY i75

fifteen children into the world, nine of them hav-
ing died; for the last three 3'ears she had become
almost a cripple with chronic rheumatism, yet she
is driven every day to work in the field. She held
my hands, and stroked them in the most appeal-
ing ways, while she exclaimed, 'Oh, my missis!
my missis! me neber sleep till day for de pain, 'and
with the day her labor must again be resumed. I
gave her flannel and sal volatile to rub her poor
swelled limbs with; rest I could not give her — rest
from her -labor and her pain — this mother of fifteen
children.

"Another of my visitors had a still more dismal
story to tell; her name was Die; she had had six-
teen children, fourteen of whom were dead. They
had strained her arms up to be lashed I asked
her what she meant by having her arms tied up.
She said their hands were first tied together, some-
times by the wrists and sometimes, which was
worse, by the thumbs, and they were then drawn
up to a tree or post, so almost to swing them off
the ground, and then their clothes rolled round
their waist, and a man with a cowhide stands and
stripes them. I give you the woman's words.
She did not speak of this as anything strange, un-
usual, or especially horrid and abominable."

One more extract concerning the manner in
which her husband's slaves were fed. Said she to
the lady friend for whom she wrote the journal:
"How do you think Berkshire County farmers
would relish laboring hard all day upon two meals
of Indian corn or hominy.? Such is the regulation
on the plantation, however, and I beg you to bear
in mind that the Negroes on this estate are gener-

176 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ally considered well off. They go to the field at
daybreak, carrying with them their allowaiice of
food for the day, which toward noon, and not till
then, they eat; cooking it over a fire which they kin-
dle as best they can, where they are working.
Their second meal in the day is at night, Sifter
their labor is over, having worked, at the very
least, six hours without intermission of rest or
refreshment since their noonday meal, properly
so-called, for it was meal and nothing else." She
also stated that their houses were miserable little
squalid hovels, swarming with vermin, crowded
to suffocation, and so poorly ventilated that in
that hot climate it was almost impossible to get
a breath of fresh air. The same was in a rr. easure
true of the so-called slave hospitals.

Jane Grey Swisshelm, sometimes calltd the
"Fanny Kemble of America," in her book entitled
"Half a Century," speaking of the time she lived
in Louisville, Kentucky, almost fifty years ago,
said: "While I lived on that dark and bloody
ground, a Negro was beaten to death in an open
shed, on the corner of two public streets, where
the sound of the blows, the curses of his two tor-
mentors, and his shrieks and unavailing prayers
for mercy were continued for a whole forenoon,
and sent the complaining air shuddering to the
ears of thousands, not one of whom offered any
help.

"Passing a crowded church on a Sabbath after-
noon, I stepped in, when the preacher was descant-
ing on the power of religion, and, in illustration,
he told of two wicked young men in that state,
who were drinking and gambling on Sunday morn-

A NEW CENTURY 177

ing, when one said: 'I can lick the religion out of
any nigger.'

"I he other would bet one hundred dollars
that he had a nigger out of whom the religion
could not be licked. The bet was taken and
they adjourned to a yard. This unique nigger
was summoned, and proved to be a poor old
man. His master informed him he had a bet on
him, and the other party commanded him to 'curse
Jesus, 'on pain of being liogged until he did. The
old saint dropped on his knees before his master,
and pleaded for mercy, saying: 'Massa! Massa!
I cannot curse Jesus! Jesus die for me! He die
for you, Massa. I no curse him; I no curse Jesus!'

"The master began to repent. In babyhood he
had ridden on those old bowed shoulders, then
stalwart and firm, and he proposed to withdraw
the bet, but the other wanted sport and would
win the money. Oh! the horrible details that the
preacher gave of that day's sport, of the lashings,
and faintings, and revivals, with washes of strong
brine, the prayers for mercy, and the recurring
moan, T no curse Jesus, Massa! I no curse
Jesus. Jesus die for me, Massa; I die for Jesus!'

"As the sun went down Jesus took him, and his
merciless master had sold a worthless nigger for
one hundred dollars. But the only point which
the preacher made was that one in favor of re-
ligion: When it could so support a Nigger, what
might it not do for one of the superior race?"

A female member of the Fourth St. Methodist
Church was threatened with discipline, for nailing
her cook to the fence by the ear with a ten-penny
nail, The preacher in charge witnessed the punish-

178 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ment from a back window of his residence. Hun-
dreds of others witnessed it, called by the shrieks
of the victim; and his reverence protested on the
ground that "such scenes were calculated to injure
the church."

The following is an extract from a letter written
by Rev. John H. Aughey, a brilliant young Pres-
byterian minister, who fled from the South to save
his life shortly after penning these lines, having
been an eye-witness to many of the scenes.

"Kosciusko, Atlanta Co., Mississippi, December
25, 1861.

"Mr. William Jackman.

"Dear Sir: — Your last kind and truly welcome
letter came to hand in due course of mail. . . .

"In your letter you desired me from my stand-
point to give you my observations of the workings
of the peculiar institution, and an expression of
my views as to its consistency with the eternal
principle of rectitude and justice. In reply I will
give you a plain narrative of facts. On my ad-
vent to the South, I was at first struck with the
fact that the busy hum of labor had in some meas-
ure ceased. What labor I did observe progress-
ing was done with little skill and mainly by Ne-
groes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breck-
enridge, to whom I had a letter of introduction,
who treated me with the greatest kindness, invit-
ing me to make his home my home when I visited'
that section of the country. On leaving his
house, he gave me some directions as to the road
I must travel to reach a certain point. 'You will
pass,' said he, 'a blacksmith's shop, where a one-

A NEW CENTURY 179

eyed man is at work — my property. ' The phrase,
*my property,' I had never before heard apphed
to a human being, and it grated harshly upon my
ears. But it grated much more harshly a week
after this to hear the groans of two such chattels,
as they underwent a severe flagellation, while
chained to the whipping-post, because they had,
by half an hour, overstayed their time with their
families on the adjoining plantation. The next
peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution
which I observed was the licentiousness engendered
by it. Mr. D. F — of Madison County, Kentucky,
had a white family of children, and a black, or
rather mulatto family. As his white daughters
married he gave each a mulatto half-sister, as a
waiting-girl or body-servant.

"Mr. B — of Marshall County, Mississippi, lived
with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some
of whom came to school to me, when he repudi-
ated his white wife, and attached himself to a very
homely African, who superintends his household,
and rules his other slaves with rigor. Mr. S — of
Tishomingo County, Mississippi, took a Negro for a
wife, and had a large family of mulatto children.
He once brought this woman to church at Rienzi,
to the great indignation of the white ladies, who
removed to a respectable distance from her. I
preached recently to a large congregation of slaves,
one-third of which were as white as myself. Some
of them had red hair and blue eyes. If there are
any marked characteristics of their masters' fami-
lies, the mulatto slaves are possessed of these char-
acteristics.

"I never knew a pious overseer — never! There

i8o A NEW NEGRO FOR

may be many, but I never saw one. Overseers, as
a class, are worse than the slaveholders themselves.
They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated and
profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a
revolver and a bowie-knife. These men have the
control of women, whom they often whip to death.
Mr. P — ,who resided near Holly Springs, had a
Negro woman whipped to death while I was at his
house during a session of Presbytery. Mr. C —
of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped
to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourg-
ings are of daily occurrence.

"Colonel H — , a member of my church, told me
yesterday that he ordered a boy, who he supposed
was feigning sickness, to the whipping-post, but
that he had not advanced ten steps towards it
when he fell dead! — and the servant was free from
his master. During our conversation, a girl passed.
'There is a girl,' said he, 'who does not look very
white in the face owing to exposure, but when I
strip her to whip her I find she has a skin as fair
as my wife. '

"Mrs.T — recently whipped a boy to death within
half a mile of my residence. A jury of inquest
returned a verdict that he came to his death by
cruelty, but nothing more was done. Mrs. M — ■
and her daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl
repeatedly. She showed her bruises to some of
my congregation, and they believed them fatal.
She soon after died. Mrs. S — , a member of my
church, has several maimed Negroes from abuse on
the part of the overseer. I am residing on the banks
of the Yock-a-nookany, which means *meander-
ing' in the Indian tongue. In this vicinity there

A NEW CENTURY i8i

are large plantations, cultivated by hundretis
of Negroes. The white population is sparse.
Every night the Negroes are brought to a judg-
ment-seat. The overseer presides. If they have
not labored to suit him, or if their task is unful-
filled, they are chained to a post and severely
whipped. The victims are invariably stripped, to
what extent is at the option of the overseer.

"Mr. C — of Waterford, Mississippi, punished
his Negroes by slitting the soles of their feet with
his bowie-knife! One man he put into a cotton-
press and turned the screw till life was extinct.
He stated that he only intended to alarm the man,
but carried the joke too far. I have heard women
thus plead, in piteous accents, when chained to
the whipping-post and stripped: 'O my God,
master! don't whip me! I was sick! Indeed I
was sick! I had a chill and the fever is on me
now! I haven't tasted a morsel to-day! You
know I works when I is well! O, for God's sake
don't whip a poor sick nigger! My poor chile's
sick too! Missis thinks its dyin' ! O master, for
the love of God, don't cut a poor distressed woman
wid your whip! I'll try to do better, ef you'll
only let me off this once!'

"These piteous plaints only roused the ire of
their cruel task-masters, who sometimes knocked
them down in the midst of their pleadings. One
beautiful Sabbath morning, I stood on the levee
at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and counted twenty-
seven sugar houses in full blast. I found the
Negroes were compelled to labor eighteen hours
per day, and were not permitted to rest on the
Sabbath during the rolling season. The Negroes

i82 A NEW NEGRO FOR

of most plantations have a truck patch, which they
cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the
sin of thus laboring on Sunday, but they plead
necessity; their children, they stated, must suffer
from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck
patch, and their masters would not give them
time on any other day.

"Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning
to read. This law was not strictly enforced in Ten-
nessee and some other states till within a few
years past. I had charge of a Sabbath school for
the instruction of the blacks in Memphis, Tennes-
see, in 1853. This school was put down by the
strong arm of the law in a short time after my
connection with it ceased. In Mississippi a man
who taught slaves to read or write would be sent
to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for
this wickedness is that if they were taught to read
they would read the abolition documents; and if
they were taught to write, they would write them-
selves passes, and pass northward to Canada. Such
advertisements as the following often greet the eye:
'Kansas War. — The undersind taks this metod of
makkin it noan that he has got a pack of the best
nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is well
trand, and I has had much experience a huntin
niggers, havin follered it for the last fifteen years.
I will go anywhar that I'm sent for, and will ketch
niggers at the follerin raits. My raits fur ketchin
runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they's found in
the beat whar thar master lives, $1 5 if they's found
in the county and $50 if they's tuck out on the
county. N. B. — Pay is due when the nigger v^
tuck. Planters ort to send fur me as soon as thar
riggers runs away, while thar track is fresh.'

DR. JOHN R. FRANCIS,
Graduate of the Medical Department of the University of
Michigan, and One of the Best Known
Physicians in Washington, D. C.

183

i84 A NEW NEGRO FOR

"Every night the woods resound with the deep-
mouthed baying of the bloodhounds. The slaves
are said by some to love their masters; but it re-
quires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive
slave law to keep them in bondage. You in the
Norih are compelled to act the part of the blood-
hounds here, and catch the fugitives for the plant-
ers of the South. Free Negroes are sold into
bondage for the most trivial offenses; slaveholders
declare that the presence of free persons of color
exerts pernicious influence upon their slaves.
They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of
these persons, either by banishing from the state or
enslaving them. The Legislature of Mississippi
and other states passed laws for their expulsion.
The Governor of Missouri vetoed the law in that
state, on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
The question is often asked. Is slavery sinful in
itself.-^ My observation has been extensive, em-
bracing eight slave states, and I have never yet
seen any example of slavery that did not seem
sinful. If slavery is not sinful in itself, 1 must
have always seen it out of itself. I have observed
its workings during eleven years among a profess-
edly Christian people, and pronounce it an unmit-
igated curse.

"John H. Aughey.
"To Mr. William Jackman,
"Amsterdam,

"Jefferson County, Ohio."

CHAPTER XL
UNDERGROUND RAILROADS.

The necessity for this so-called "Railroad" grew
out of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850, which established courts and commissioners
unknown to the constitution, and was certainly
the most inhuman law passed by a civilized coun-
try in the nineteenth century.

The most common act of benevolence to a fugi-
tive slave had to be kept a profound secret. The
penalty for giving or selling a meal to one of the
passengers on this Road, or helping them on their
way, was imprisonment and one thousand dollars
fine; while those who aided and encouraged
slaves to escape, were subject to a long term in
the penitentiary.

Naturally when the better element of the people
found that this infamous law, passed at the dic-
tation of the slave power, was diametrically op-
posed to the golden rule, and the example of Him
who "went about doing good," they believed with
Xhe apostles that they "ought to obey God rather

185

i86 A NEW NEGRO FOR

than men," and rightly spurned this law by hero-
ically helping the poor bondmen to the free states
and Canada, the Mecca of the fleeing slaves. The
result was a spontaneous uprising and banding to-
gether of determined men and women from Maine
to Kansas, with many stations and starting points
through the South, which on account of its rapid
transit, unity of action and secret operation, was
called the Underground Railroad. There is said
to have been four main trunk lines across the
state of New York, and several through Ohio and
southern Michigan. But how was it operated.''
Like other railroads, it had its officers, engineers,
conductors, ticket agents, train dispatchers, sta-
tions, hotels and lunch counters. Its business
was conducted with great harmony, profound se-
crecy and perfect fidelity.

Unlike other railroads, when it ceased to exist,
it divided its immense profits among its passengers,
who invested it in large tracts of land in Canada,
in building dwellings, barns, churches, school-
houses, factories of all kinds, and in stocking, im-
proving and cultivating farms.

The poor slaves, groaning under cruel bondage,
and sighing for freedom, often heard of this Road
•n various ways; sometimes a Northern traveler
'vould show them how to find the north star and
hint that in that direction lay liberty, and that he
vrould find friends to help him on his way. Fre-
q'uently a slave who had escaped would get a
f.dend to write back to a benevolent neighbor,
and tell him all about it, who, in turn, would in-
form the Negroes of his neighborhood. But more
often they found out about this Road by a per-

GEO. W. WILLIAMS.

i^7.

i88 A NEW NEGRO FOR

fectly organized system of communication and co-
operation, established even in the South.

There have always been scattered throughout
the South people who hated slavery, and had
compassion on the poor victims of this American
despotism. Such individuals have known, or
made it a point to find out and communicate with
others of "like faith and order," northward of
them at convenient stages, who had acquaintances
in the free states, and could be depended upon to
help the fugitive on his way to freedom.

Thus lines were formed from the South to the
very borders of Canada, and while they may have
been more or less zigzag, they always trended
northward and the fleeing black man found them
safe and reliable. If he succeeded in escaping
his pursuers until he reached the second or third
station, he was seldom overtaken.

Samuel J. May estimates that more than twenty
thousand found homes in Canada, while hundreds
ventured to remain in the free states. The busi-
ness was managed with such prudence and cau-
tiousness that few of those engaged in it realized
the penalties provided. Yet some of the noblest
of earth suffeied martyrdom, as victims of the
cruel fugitive slave law.

Rev. John Rankin, of Ohio, was fined one thou-
sand dollars, besides serving a term in prison. Rev,
C. T. Torry died in a Virginia prison.

W. L. Chaplin, of Massachusetts, became editor
of the Albany Patriot in 1844. In 1850, while in
Washington as correspondent for his own paper,
he was induced to aid two young men, slaves of
Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens of

A NEW CENTURY 189

Georgia, to escape. Surprised in the act, he was
arrested and imprisoned, charged with abducting
slaves. Having been a prisoner five months, he
was released on the enormous bail of twenty-five
thousand dollars. Knowing that if convicted he
would certainly be sent to the penitentiary for a
long term of years or perhaps for life, his friends
decided that the bail must be forfeited and paid.
His own little property was sacrificed, and this
large amount was finally raised, mainly through
the princely beneficence of that grand philan-
thropist, Gerrit Smith.

Calvin Fairbank spent seventeen years and four
months in the Kentucky penitentiary at Frankfort
for the glorious crime of "Nigger Stealing." During
this time, he is said to have received thirty-five
thousand stripes on his bared body.

About the year 1840 Captain Jonathan Walker
of Massachusetts took a contract to build a section
of a proposed railroad in Florida, employing a
number of Negroes in its construction. Being a
Christian and kind-hearted man he treated his men
with kindness, permitting them to eat at the same
table with himself, and bow the knee to a com-
mon heavenly Father around a common altar. As
a natural consequence, he gained the respect and
love of his men, who in 1844 persuaded him to
aid them in an attempt to escape in an open boat
to an island not far distant, belonging to England.

All went well until the captain was taken vio-
lently sick, and the fugitives, having no knowledge
of navigation, were at the mercy of wind and
wave, until picked up by the crew of a wrecking
sloop and conveyed to Key West, where he was

190 A NEW NEGRO FOR

imprisoned, until sent to Pensacola. Arriving
here, he was chained to the floor of a cell, where
two days before a man had committed suicide,
the floor being still covered with blood.

In his trial in the United States court, he was
sentenced "to be branded on the right hand with
the capital letters, 'S. S.' ; to stand in the pillory
one hour; to pay as many fines as there were slaves
'stolen;' to suffer as many terms imprisonment;
to pay the costs, and to stand committed until the
fines were paid."

The execution of these sentences began at once.
The initials of the words "Slave Stealer" were
branded upon his hand, by a brutal United States
marshal. He stood an hour in the pillory, during
which, while utterly helpless, he was pelted with
rotten eggs by a cowardly, renegade "Northern
man with Southern principles."

He was now sent to prison, where he remained
eleven months with a heavy chain on his leg, which
was never removed even for changing his cloth-
ing. Money was raised by his friends to pay his
fines and he was liberated in 1845.

The effort thus made to stigmatize and heap
odium upon this noble hero and philanthropist,
recoiled on the national Government, whose craven
cowardice and heartless ignominy was alone
responsible for it. Whittier enshrined this event in
a grand patriotic poem, and completely turned the
tables, making "S. S." a badge of honor indicative
of the "heroic spirit of an earlier, better day."

"Then lift that manly right hand, bold plowman of the wave,
its branded palm shall prophesy Salvation to the Slave;
Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.

A NEW CENTURY 191

Hold itnp before our sunshine, up against our Northern air.
Ho! men of Massachusetts, for the love of God look there!
Take it henceforth for your stan dard, like the Bruec's heart of

yore;
In the dark strife closing round ye, let that hand be seen before."

According to Henry Wilson, Thomas Garrett, a
Quaker of Delaware, was the most prominent and
successful agent of the Underground Railroad,
continuing the good work for more than fifty years;
he assisted nearly three thousand slaves to escape
from bondage. During this long time he kept
open house for the poor fugitives, and was con-
sidered the good Samaritan of the Delaware. In
1848 James Bayard, afterwards United States
senator, headed a prosecution against him before
Judge Taney, for abducting two slave children.
Of course he was convicted — they invariably were,
and lined so heavily as to sweep all his property
away, rendering him almost penniless at the age
of sixty. When the auctioneer had knocked cff
his last piece of property to pay the fines, he re-
marked that he hoped he would "never be guilty
of doing the like again." To which the good
Quaker replied, "Friend,! haven't a dollar in the
world, but if thee knows a fugitive who needs a
breakfast, send him to me." Never was a grander
sentence uttered, and we doubt not the angel in
heaven recorded it with a smile of approval.

It is gratifying to read that he outlived the cruel
system which converted his neighbors into perse-
cutors; that, like Job of old, he was more pros-
perous in the latter part of his life than ever be-
fore, living to a ripe old age in peace and tran-
quility. And when he passed away, the whole

192 A NEW NEGRO FOR

community realized that they had sustained the
irreparable loss of one of God's noblemen. He
chose for his pallbearers, representatives of the
race for whom he had spent his life.

Levi Coffin of Cincinnati, another Quaker, was
familiarly called the President of this Road ; he was
a man of high social position and sterling worth.
It is estimated that he has been instrumental in
aiding between two and three thousand slaves to
escape.

It must not be forgotten that those who man-
aged this Road were, for the most part, philan-
thropists and noble Christian men and women;
while on the other hand the slave hunters and over-
seers were, with an occasional exception, as cruel
and remorseless as their own bloodhounds.

The managers availed themselves of a great
variety of facilities for traveling; lumber-wagons,
carriages, stage-coaches, canal, ferry and steam-
boats, also ships and railroads, were all used when
needed.

Sometimes in the Southern cities such precau-
tions were taken as to render it next to impossible
for a slave to escape detection. Even then he
did not despair, but would risk his life for a pros-
pect of liberty, by getting his friends to box him
up and send him to a Northern city as express or
freight.

William Still, colored, has written the best his-
tory of the Underground Road we have seen. In
it he mentions several who were boxed up and so
escaped in spite of extra vigilance. William Box
Peel Jones arrived at Philadelphia from Baltimore
in 1859. He belonged to one Robert Carr, a gro-

A NEW CENTURY 193

cer and commission merchant, who had sold a
number of slaves, one at a time, and William
preferred the box to the auction block. He was a
little unfortunate in the choice of a box, there not
being sufficient room to straighten out his legs;
the cramped position causing such intense pain he
was almost forced to scream out. At last he
fainted away, but when he revived the pain was
less intense. Arriving in Philadelphia Sunday
morning, just seventeen hours from starting, he
was met by the same friend who had boxed him
up, he having come through on the cars. Although
it was Sunday morning, this friend managed to get
his piece of freight from the vessel. His joy was
very great on being released, and as soon as he
had recovered sufficient strength and use of his
limbs he was on his way to Canada, the friend re-
turning to Baltimore.

Henry Box Brown was boxed up in Richmond,
Virginia, by his friend James A. Smith. The ex-
act size of the box was two feet eight inches deep,
two feet wide, and three feet long. Having been
supplied with a large gimlet, a bladder of water,
and a few biscuits, he got inside, was nailed up,
and live hickory hoops were put around the box.
It was now marked, '*Wm. H. Johnson, Arch
Street, Philadelphia. This side up with care,"
and sent by Adams Express. Sometimes the
notice, "This side up with care," did not avail; for
miles he was on his head. At last, after twenty-
six long weary hours, the box and contents arrived
at its destination.

In the afternoon of the same day Mr. McKim,
a member of the vigilance com^Yiittee in Philadel-

194 A NEW NEGRO FOR

phia, received the following telegram: "Your case
of goods is shipped and will arrive to-morrow
morning early." The box was brought at once to
the anti-slavery office, where William Still, Prof.
C. D. Cleveland and Lewis Thompson were in-
vited to be present at the "opening." When all
was ready Mr. McKim rapped quietly on the lid
of the box and called out, "All right!" Instantly
came the answer, "All right, sir!" Soon the hick-
ory hoops were cut, the top of the box removed,
when he arose, ringing wet with perspiration, and
said, "How do you do, gentlemen.?"

After resting a few moments he remarked that
before leaving Richmond he had selected for his
arrival hymn, if he lived, the Psalm beginning,
"I waited patiently for the Lord, and He heard
my prayer." Most feelingly did he sing the hymn,
to the delight of his small audience.

After spending some time resting and straighten-
ing his limbs at the hospitable home of James and
Lucretia Mott, and remaining two days with Wm.
Still, he left for Boston. Mr. Samuel A. Smith,
the shoe dealer, who boxed him up in Richmond,
did the same thing for two others, but was de
tected and spent seven years in the Virginia peni-
tentiary, a martyr to the cause of freedom.

The following advertisement appeared in the
Baltimore Sun: "One hundred and fifty dollars
reward. Ran away from the subscriber Sunday
night, twenty-seventh inst., my Negro girl Lear
Green, about eighteen years of age, black com-
plexion, round features, good-looking and ordi-
nary size; she had on and with her when she left
a tan-colored silk bonnet, a plaid silk dress, a light

A NEW CENTURY 195

muslin de laine, a]so one watered silk cape, and
one tan- colored cape. I have reason to be confident
that she was persuaded off by a Negro man named
William Adams; black, quick-spoken, five feet ten
inches high, a large scar on one side of his face,
running down in a ridge by the corner of his
mouth, about four inches long, barber by trade,
but works mostly about taverns, opening oysters,
etc. He has been missing about a week; he had
been heard to say he was going to marry the above
girl and ship to New York, where, it is said, his
mother resides. The above reward will be paid
if the said girl is taken out of the state of Mary-
land and returned to me; or fifty dollars if taken
in the state of Maryland. James Noble, No. 153
Broadway, Baltimore."

Lear Green, so particulary described in this ad-
vertisement, deserved to be ranked among the
heroines of this century. She is said to have been
a *'dark brown color," instead of "black," (fear of
complimenting a slave often led to a false descrip-
tion) and possessed a countenance of peculiar mod-
esty and grace. Her young mistress was very ex-
acting and overbearing towards her;so she resolved
to take the advice of her lover, William Adams,
and thereby gain her freedom and a husband at
the same time. All the avenues of travel at this
time were so closely guarded there seemed but
one chance to escape, the trial of which required
heroic courage. But it was decided to make this
attempt, for what will a woman not encounter or
what obstacles will she not overcome for the
double motive of love and a prospect of liberty.?

An old sailor's chest was procured; a qi7'it, a

196 A NEW NEGRO FOR

pillow and a few articles of clothing, with a small
quantity of food and a bottle cf water, were put
into it, and Lear getting inside, the top was closed
and strong ropes tied around it, leaving a small
crevice between the edge of the chest and the top.
The chest with its contents was soon stored away
among ordinary freight on one of the Ericson
line of steamers.

The mother of her intended, a free woman,
agreed to come as a passenger on the same boat
and look after this precious piece of freight.

The rules of the company assigned colored pas-
sengers to the deck, which was the very place this
woman wanted, so as to be as near the chest as
possible. During the night, when all was still,
she could not refrain from opening the lid a little
to see if her charge lived, and give her a breath
of fresh air.

At the end of eighteen hours they landed at
Philadelphia. Soon the chest and living freight
were taken to the home of friends of the mother,
on Barley Street. Later the chest and its late
occupant were removed to the residence of William
Still, who had her photographed in the chest.
In due time she was sent on to Elmira, New York,
where she married her lover, William Adams, and
they lived happily together in that city.

E. M. Pettit, in his ''Sketches of the Under-
ground Railroad," mentions a number of interest-
ing escapes, among the rest that of a mother and
little daughter seven years of age, named respec-
tively Statie and Lila, who escaped in a box from
Washington, D. C, to Warsaw, New York. Statie
was a very proficient house servant, belonging to

A NEW CENTURY i97

a man by the name of Limes, living just opposite
Washington on the Virginia side. Her master,
owning more slaves than he could employ, hired
out a number of them, their wages constituting his
income. Statie was allowed to hire herself out on
condition that she paid her master ten dollars a
month, and furnished clothing for her little girl,
who, like the mother, was nearly white, and quite
attractive.

At first she hired herself to a farmer named Bar-
bour, who was very kind to her and the child.
Afterwards being offered much larger wages by a
hotel keeper in Washington, she accepted the
place, hoping to save enough money to buy her
child's freedom. She would return to her master
every three months, to see her child and pay him
the wages. On one of these trips she learned of his
intention to sell her little girl, and resolved at
once to make her escape and take the child with
her.

With the aid of her kind friend Mr. Barbour, a
plan was soon arranged. It happened that Bar-
bour had formerly lived in New York, and he now
told his neighbors he was going to make a visit to
his friends in that state. He had a splendid team,
and a good strong spring-wagon. Procuring a box
to fit his wagon, he put into it straw and quilts,
plenty of provision and water.

According to previous appointment, he met the
mother and daughter at night j ust outside of Wash-
ington, and Statie and Lila were soon comfortably
stored away, en route towards the north star. Mr.
Barbour passed himself off for a Yankee clock
peddler, a veritable Sam Slick, and as he paid

198 A NEW NEGRO FOR

his hotel bills, drove a good wagon and team, no
questions were asked. When out of sight of settle-
ments, the fugitives would sometimes get out to
pick berries, and when it was safe to do so, would
walk about in the night for exercise. Thus they
ma 'e the long journey through Pennsylvania to
Warsaw, New York. Here he met Col. Charles
O. Shepard of Attica, a popular member of the
State Senate, who was there attending court. Col.
Shepard was the very agent of the Underground
Railroad he was in quest of; so Mr. Barbour gave
his two passengers mto his keeping, and he took
them to Attica when he returned.

On account of its having been published in the
papers, the master heard of them and employed
slave-hunters to recapture and return them. But
the men he sent were almost m.obbed, so were glad
to return without them. So mother and daughter
lived happily together in Wyoming County, New
York.

A gentleman took his little daughter with him
to the Legislative Hall at Springfield to hear Owen
Lovejoy make his great speech in favor of the bill
to repeal the "black law" of Illinois.

Mr. Lovejoy showed that he had much of the
same spirit of his martyred brother Elijah P., by
denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law, as not only
unjust and wicked, unnatural and dangerous to
the stability of a free government, but also degrad-
ing and an outrage on every principle of humanity
and religion. He endorsed the Underground Road
in all its principles and results, and closed his
speech with the following immortal words: "In so
doing I accept the consequences of wicked legis-

A NEW CENTURY 199

riation, and let it be known that Owen Lovejoy,
of Princeton, Bureau County, Illinois, will hold
himself ready at all times to give advice, food,
shelter and aid in every possible way in the pursuit
of freedom, to any poor, panting fugitive from the
horrors of American slavery, so help me Almighty
God."

On their way home the little girl asked, "Is
that man an abolitionist?" "Yes," said he. "Well,
papa, are you an abolitionist too?" "Yes," he
replied, "but I was such a fool I did not know it!"

What Lovejoy thus expressed was the senti-
ment of thousands of people of the free states,
who regarded the Fugitive Slave Bill as little short
of an indirect attempt to abolish Christianity, and
as absurd as the Pope's Bull against the comet.

Mr. Pettit related the following interesting story
of Margaret, who, with her mother, was owned by
a family who gave her religious instruction, and
she became very pious. At the age of sixteen she
went with her young mistress, who had married
a planter living on the "Eastern Shore." Margaret
married at the age of twenty; but in less than a
year her husband was torn from her frantic em-
brace and sold South.

She incurred the displeasure of her master by
grieving over her fondly cherished husband, and
refusing to take another. In order to break her
spirit, and bring her to terms, he put her into the
tobacco field and instructed his brutal overseer to
work her to the utmost of her ability, which com-
mand was enforced up to the day of the birth of
her child. At the end of one week she was driven
again to the field and compelled to perform a full

200 A NEW NEGRO FOR

task. It WE.S customary at this time to have nur-
series on the plantation, presided over by aged and
decrepit slaves, where mothers could leave their
infants during working hours. But this privilege
was denied to Margaret; she was obliged to leave
her child under the shade of a bush in the field,
returning to it but twice during the long day.

On going to the child one evening, she found it
apparently insensible, exhausted with crying, and
a large serpent lying across it. Although she felt
it would be better for both herself and child if it
were dead, yet her mother's heart impelled her
to make an effort to save it, so by caressing and
careful handling she revived it. As soon as she
heard its feeble wailing cry, she vowed to deliver
her boy from the cruel power of slavery or die in
the attempt. Falling en her knees like Hannah
of old, she gave the child into God's keeping, and
prayed for strength to enable her to perform her
vow, for grace and patience to sustain her in
suffering, toil, and hunger. Then pressing the child
to her bosom, she fled with all speed, her course
being northward. Having gone a mile or two,
she was overtaken by Watch, the old house dog.
Watch was a large mastiff, somewhat old, but he
and Margaret had become great friends. She
feared it would not be safe to let him go with her;
still the dog had determined to go, and a mastiff
has a will of his own, so she resumed her flight
followed by her faithful escort.

At daybreak she hid herself in the border of a
plantation, and was soon asleep. At dusk she
was aroused by the noise of slaves returning to
their quarters. Seeing a woman linger behind,

A NEW CENTURY 201

she went up to her and telling her troubles, asked
for food. About midnight the woman returned
with a supply, which she divided with Watch, and
immediately started on her journey.

The second day after she left, a slave-hunter,
with his dogs, was employed to catch and return
her. He started with a dog and three puppies,
thinking, no doubt, that as the game was only a
woman and baby it would be a good time to train
the young dogs. He did not find her as easily as he
expected, however, but about noon of the second
day the old dog struck her trail where Margaret
had made her little camp the day before; so she
bounded off with renewed vigor, leaving the man
and puppies far in the rear. The puppies soon
lost the trail where Margaret forded the streams,
and the old dog was miles away, leaving the hunter
without a guide. Meantime Margaret had been
lying in the woods on the banks of a river,intend-
ing to start again as soon as it was dark, when she
was startled by the whining and nervous action of
Watch, and listening,she heard the distant bay of
a bloodhound. The peril of her situation now
flashed upon her. She expected to witness the
mangling of her babe by the savage brute, and
then be torn to pieces herself. But she did not
lose presence of mind, however, and determined
to sell her life and that of her child as dearly as
possible; she fastened him to her shoulder, and
procuring a stout club waded out as far as she
could into the river or inlet, which was too wije
and deep to ford at this point.

Meantime the mastiff lay with his nose between
his feet, watching the coming foe. The hound, ler-

202 A NEW NEGRO FOR

dered more fierce by the fresh track, came bound-
ing on wilh her nose to the ground, scenting her
prey, and seemed not to see Watch, until, leaping
to pass over him, she found her throat seized by
the massive jaws of the mastiff. The struggle was
terrible but brief, for the mastiff did not loosen
his jaws until the hound was dead.

Margaret returned to the bank and would have
embraced her brave deliverer, but fearing this was
but the advance of a strong pack, she threw the
dead hound into the river and pushed on up the
stream.

A few hours after this she fell in with friends,
who hid her several days, then sent her to Phila-
delphia, from there to New York City over the
Underground Road. Here she became a cele-
brated trained nurse, and was in great demand by
invalids. She made a host of friends and earned
a competency. Renting a comfortable house, she
kept the faithful old mastiff until he died of old
age some years afterwards.

Her boy, whom curiously enough, like Hannah
of old, she named Samuel, obtained the rudiments
of an education at a school in West Chester
County. Afterwards, at the home of Gerrit Smith,
he enjoyed the advantages of a thorough edu-
cation; became a devoted and eloquent minister
of the gospel in the Congregational church. Like
his mother, he was so black it was said to grow
dark when he entered a room; but it grew light
when he began to speak. Samuel afterwards
went to England, and was sent by the British
government on a mission of importance to Jamaica.

Samuel J. May, in his "Recollections of the

A NEW CENTURY 203

Anti-Slavery Conflict," mentions several interest-
ing incidents of his personal experience as a sta-
tion agent. "On one occasion," said he, "while
living at Syracuse, a squalid mortal came to my
back-door with a note stating that he was a pas^
senger on the Underground Road. 'O massa,'
said he, ^I'm not fit to come into your house.'
'No,' I replied, 'you are not now, but soon shall
be. ' So, stepping in, I got a tub of warm water,
with towels and soap. He helped me with them
into the barn. 'There,' said I, 'give yourself a
thorough washing and throw your clothing out
upon the dirt heap,' He set about his task with
a good will, and I returned to the house and brought
out to him a complete outfit of clean clothing,
from a deposit kept supplied by my parishioners.
"He received each article with unspeakable thank-
fulness, but the clean white shirt, with collar and
cravat, delighted him above measure. I found
him to be a man of much natural intelligence, but
ignorant of letters. He had had a very hard mas-
ter and exulted on his new-found freedom. After
remaining with me two days, he went on to Canada."
Quite a contrast is shown by the following in-
cident. One Saturday night Mr. May's eldest son
came to the parlor door and said, "Here, father,
is another living epistle to you from the South,"
and ushered in a fine looking, well dressed young
man. Mr. May took his hand in welcome and
said: "But this is not the hand of one who has
been doing hard work; it is softer than mine."
"No sir," he replied, "I have not been allowed to
do work that would harden my hands. I have
been the slave of a very wealthy planter in Ken-

204 ^ ^"EJV NEGRO FOR

tucky, who kept me only to drive the carriage for
mistress and her daughters, to wait upon them at
table and accompany them on their journeys. I
was not allowed even to groom the horses, and
was required to wear gloves when I drove."

Mr. May noticed he used good language, and
pronounced it correctly, and remarked, ''You must
have received some instruction; I thought the laws
of the slave states sternly prohibited the teaching
of slaves." "They do, sir," he replied, "but my
master was an easy man in that respect. My
young mistresses taught me to read, and got me
books and papers from their father's library. I
have had much leisure time and have improved it."

By further conversation it was shown that he
was familiar with a considerable number of the
best American and English authors in poetry and
prose. Mr. May now asked, "If you had such an
easy time, and were so much favored, why did you
run away.^" "O, sir," he answered, "slavery at
best is a bitter draught. Under the most favored
circumstances, it is bondage and degradation still.
I often writhed in my chains, though they sat on
me so lightly compared to others. I was often on
the point of taking wings for the North, but the
words of Hamlet would come to me, 'Better to
bear those ills we have, than liy to others we know
not of,' and I should have remained with my mas-
ter had it not been that I learned a few weeks ago
he was about to sell me to a particular friend of
his, then visiting him from New Orleans. I sus-
pected this evil was impending over me from the
notice the gentleman took of me and the kind of
questions he asked me.

A NEW CENTURY 205

"At length, one of my young mistresses, who
knew my dread of being sold, came to me, and
bursting into tears, said, 'Harry, father is going to
sell you!' She put five dollars into m.y hand and
went weeping away. With that, and with much
more money I had received from time to time,
and saved for this hour of need, I started that
night and reached the Ohio River before morning.
I immediately crossed to Cincinnati and hurried
on board a steamer, the steward of which was a
black man of my acquaintance. He concealed
me until the boat had returned to Pittsburg.
There he introduced me to a gentleman he knew
to be friendly to us colored folks That gentle-
man sent me to a friend in Meadville, and he di-
rected me to come to you."

Mr. May told him that since he was a coach-
man and waiter, he could get him an excellent
situation in that city; which would enable him to
live comfortably until he was acquainted with
Northern manners and customs, and something
better presented itself. But Harry hastily replied,
"O, I thank you, sir, but I shall not dare to stop
this side of Canada. My master, though kind to
me, is a proud and passionate man. He will never
forgive me for running away. He has already
advertised me, offering a large reward for my ar-
rest and return to him. I am not safe here and
must go to Canada." So Monday afternoon he
left with a letter of introduction to a gentleman
in Kingston, where he arrived safely in a few days.

Mr. May also told of a beautiful octoroon who
came to him from New Orleans. Her story was
about as follows; "I was a slave in New Orleans;

2o6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

my master was concerned in a line of packet steam-
ers that ply between New Orleans and Galves-
ton. For the past few years he had kept me on
board one of his boats as the chambermaid. This
was rather an easy and not a disagreeable position.
I was very attentive to the lady passengers, es-
pecially when they were seasick, and made many
friends. They often made me presents of clothes,
trinkets and money, and what was better, they
taught me to read. At each end of the route I
had days of leisure, which I improved as best I
could. I was often worried by the thought that I
was a slave, but as I was comfortable in other
respects, 1 might have remained in bondage, had
I not learned that my master was about to sell
me to a dissolute young man, and I knew it would
be a life much more to be dreaded than the bond-
age I then endured; so at once I determined to
escape.

"Being much of the time at the wharf in New
Orleans, I could readily distinguish the vessels of
the different nations. So I went to one I knew
was an English ship, on board of which I saw a
lady — the captain's wife. Asking and obtaining
permission to come on board, and encouraged by
her kind manner, I revealed to her my secret and
my wish to escape. She could hardly be persuaded
that I was a slave, being, as I supposed, the child
of my master; but when all doubt was removed
she readily consented to take me with her to New
York.

"I succeeded in getting what money had saved
an(3 all my clothes on board, so we sailed next
day. The captain was equally kind and I was

FERDINAND L. BARNETT,

Assistant State's Attorney of the State of Illinois.

207

2o8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

able to pay as much as he would take for my
passage. On arriving in New York the captain
took pains to inquire for abolitionists, and being
directed to Mr. Lewis Tappan, took me with him
to the good gentleman. Mr. Tappan provided
for my safety in that city, and the next day sent
me to Mr. Myers at Albany, on my way to you."

Mr. May kindly offered to find her a place in
some one of the best families in Syracuse; but she
was afraid to remain there. She had seen in New
York City her master's advertisement offering five
hundred dollars for her restoration to him. She
was positive there were slave-hunters on her track.
Two men in the train between Albany and Syra-
cuse had annoyed and alarmed her by their close
observation. One had seated himself by her side
and tried to engage her in conversation, and to
look through her veil. At length he asked her to
take off the glove of her left hand; by this she
knew that he had seen the advertisement stating
that one finger on the left hand was minus a joint.
Instead of complying with this rude request she
called the conductor, who gave her a seat by a
lady, so reached Syracuse in safety.

After remaining with Mr. May several days,
passing the time by reading French, he sent her
to Kingston, Canada, where she was no longer a
slave, but as God intended, enjoying her freedom.

CHAPTER XII.
HEROES AND MARTYRS.

On a marble monument at Canton Centre,
New York, is to be seen this inscription: "in
memory of Captain John Brown, who died in the
Revolutionary War, at New York, September 3rd,
1776. He was the fourth generation from Peter
Brown, who landed from the Mayflower at Plym-
outh, Massachusetts, December 22, 1620."

With such ancestors, the subject of this sketch
could hardly fail to be a liberty-loving, slavery-
hating patriot. John Brown, known in history as
"Ossawatomie Brown," was born in Torrington,
Connecticut, May 9th, 1800. He was nearly six
feet tall, slender, wiry, and of dark complexion.
His brow was prominent, with slightly Roman
nose, which gave him quite a commanding appear-
ance. He had great self-possession, conscientious-
ness and strong will-power. He was quick in his
motions and elastic in his tread.

When Congress gave the Free State settlers of
Kansas no protection, but was in reality trying to
drag the territory into the Union with a slave
constitution, many anti-slavery men rushed into
Kansas, determined to maintain their rights and
dispute every inch of ground, even if it led to a
border war, as indeed was the inevitable result.

209

2IO A NEW NEGRO FOR

Among the champions of freedom who went to
Kansas were John Brown and his sons. He was
not in sympathy with either of the anti-slavery
or pohtical parties then in existence, but with his
friends and followers formed a little party of his
own which advocated carrying the war into the
enemies' ranks, and aggressive measures for the
freedom of slaves. In a speech at Ossawatomie
about this time, he said: "Talk is a national in-
stitution,but it does no good to the slaves." He also
said to a personal friend: "Young men must learn
to wait. Patience is the hardest lesson to learn. I
have waited twenty years to accomplish my pur-
pose." These are the words of a practical, ju-
dicious leader, who had deep convictions of duty,
a strong hold on truth, and "a conscience void of
offense towards God and man." In short, he was
a born ruler and leader of men, but had the mis-
fortune to be a little in advance of public sen-
timent on the question of how to get rid of the
hydra-headed monster, slavery.

One of Captain Brown's most successful expe-
ditions was that in which he liberated eleven slaves
in Missouri, conducted them through Iowa and
Illinois to Canada, that haven of escaped slaves.

I think it was in 1847 that John Brown ac-
cepted an invitation to visit Boston from George
L. Stearns, who proffered to pay his expenses.
A full account of this visit was given by Mrs.
Stearns in a letter. It was arranged for him to
meet certain friends of freedom on Sunday, as
this was the only time convenient to all parties. It
was feared Brown would not approve of this, but
he said in his characteristic way: "Mr. Stearns, I

A NEW CENTURY 211

have a little ewe-lamb that I want to pull out of
the ditch, and the Sabbath will be as good a day
as any to do it." Mr. Stearns' oldest son, then
a boy eleven years old, was greatly fascinated by
this strange, kind-hearted man, and after obtain-
ing his father's permission, he brought out his
spending money and gave it to Brown, saying:
"Captain Brown, will you buy something with this
money for those poor people in Kansas, and
sometime will you write to me and tell me what
sort of a little boy you v/ere?" "Yes, my son, I
will, and God bless you for your kind heart," he
answered.

One of his sayings in Boston is quoted by Mrs.
Stearns in the same letter, as follows: "Gentle-
men, I consider the Golden Rule and the Decla-
ration of Independence one and inseparable; and
it is better that a whole generation of men, wom-
en and children should be swept away, than that
this crime of slavery should exist one day longer."
She also tells of her baby boy, little three year old
Carl, coming into the room as Captain Brown
was talking; and how he stood and looked at him
intently with his beautiful, beaming eyes; but as
the good man was simply irresistible to children,
the little boy was soon on his knee playing with
his beard or nestling his head in his bosom. We
read, "A man may smile and smile and be a villain
still;" but my observation teaches me that one
who loves and is beloved by children is apt to be
a candid and a noble man. Captain Brown had
the same experience with the children of Frederick
Douglass, when boarding in the family at Roches-
ter, January, 1858. One of them still says: "The

212 A NEW NEGRO FOR

sun seemed to rise and set with me in John
Brown." He even demonstrated his love for chil-
dren by his request concerning the kind of mourn-
ers he wanted at his funeral, as mentioned in his
last letter, which we will read farther on.

In the latter part of 1847 John Brown and
Frederick Douglass spent the night together at
Springfield, Massachusetts. The conversation
which then took place between them is quoted
from Frederick May Holland's work. In it Doug-
lass tells his own story as follows: "He touched
my vanity at the outset in this wise: 'I have,'
he said, 'been looking over your people during the
last twenty years, watching and waiting for heads
to rise above the surface, to whom I could safely
impart my views and plans. At times I have
been almost discouraged, but lately I have seen a
good many heads popping up, and whenever I see
them, I try to put myself in communication with
them,' John Brown's plan, as it was then formed
in his mind, was very simple and had much to
commend it. It did not, as some suppose, directly
contemplate a general uprising among the slaves,
and a general slaughter of the slave masters, but
it did contemplate the creation of an armed force,
which should constantly act against slavery in
the heart of the South. He called my attention
to a large map upon the wall, and pointed out to
me the far-reaching Alleghanies, stretching away
from New York into the Southern States. 'These
mountains,' he said, 'are the basis of my plans.
God has given the strength of these hills to free-
dom. They were placed here by the Almighty
for the emancipation of your race. They are full

A NEW CENTURY 213

of natural forts, where one man for defense will
be equal to a hundred for attack. They are full
of good hiding places, where a large number of
brave men could be concealed and for a long time
baffle and elude pursuit. I know these mountains
well, and could take a body of men into them
there, despite all the efforts Virginia could make
to dislodge and drive me out of them. My plan,
then, is this: to take about tw^enty-five brave
men into those mountains, and begin my w^ork on
a small scale, supply them with arms and pro-
visions, and post them in companies of five on a
line of twenty-five miles. These shall for a time
busy themselves in gathering recruits from the
neighboring farms, seeking and selecting the most
daring and restless spirits first.' In this part of
the work, he said, the utmost care was to be taken
to avoid treachery and discovery. Only the most
conscientious and skillful of his men were to be
detailed for this perilous duty. With care and
enterprise, he thought, he could soon gather a
force of one hundred hearty men, who would be
content to lead the free and adventurous life to
which he proposed to train them. When once
properly drilled, and each man had found the place
for which he was best suited, they would begin
the work in earnest. They would run off the
slaves in large numbers. They would retain the
strong and brave and send the weak ones North
by the Underground Railroad. His operations
would be enlarged with the increasing number of
his men, and they would not be confined to one
locality. He would approach the slaveholders in
some cases at midnight, and tell them they must

214 ^ ^^^ NEGRO FOR

give up their slaves, and also let them have their
best horses upon which to ride away. Slavery,
he said, was a state of war, in which the slaves
were unwilling parties, and that they therefore
had a right to anything necessary to their peace and
freedom. He would shed no blood, and would
avoid a fight, except when he could not escape
from it and was compelled to do it in self-defense.
He would then, of course, do his best. This
movement, he said, would weaken slavery in two
ways. First, by making slave property insecure,
it would make such property undesirable. Sec-
ondly, it would keep the anti-slavery agitation
alive, and public attention fixed upon the subject,
and thus finally lead to the adoption of measures
for the abolishing of the slave system altogether.
He held that the anti-slavery agitation was in
danger of dying out, and that it needed some such
startling measures as he proposed, to keep it
alive and effective. Slavery, he said, had nearly
been abolished in Virginia by the Nat Turner in-
surrection; and he thought his plan of operation
would speedily abolish it in both Maryland and
Virginia. He said his trouble was to get the right
kind of men with which to begin the work, and
the means necessary to equip them. And here he
explained the reason for his simple mode of living,
his plain dress, his leather stock. He had adopted
this economy in order to save money with which
to arm and equip men to carry out his plan of
liberation. This was said by him in no boastful
terms. On the contrary, he said he had already
delayed his work too long, and that he had no
room to boast either his zeal or his self-denial.

A NEW CENTURY 215

From eight o'clock in the evening till three o'clock
in the morning, Captain Jchn Brown and I sat
face to face, he arguing in favor of his plan, and
I finding all the objections I could against it.
Now mark! This conversation took place fully
twelve years before the blow was struck at Har-
per's Ferry, and his plan v/as even then more than
twenty years old. He had, therefore, been watch-
ing and waiting all these years for suitable heads
to rise up, or 'pop up,' to use his expression,
among the sable millions, to whom he could safely
confide his plan, and thus nearly forty years had
passed between this man's thoughts and his act."
The last interview between John Brown and
Frederick Douglass took place in an old stone
quarry near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, August
20th, 1859. There were only four men present
at this council of war, if it might be so termed;
Douglass and a colored man nam.ed Shields Green,
who had recently escaped from slavery in South
Carolina, John Brown, and his secretary Mr.
Kagai. Douglass now learned for the first time
that Brown had changed his plan, and meditated
an attack on Harper's Ferry at once and running
the risk of getting to the mountains afterwards.
With his usual far-seeing sagacity, Douglass told
Brown he was running into a steel trap, and urged
him to desist, as it could result only in ruin to him-
self, and injury to the cause they both loved. But
it was unavailing; the man of iron will had made
up his mind, and nothing could turn him from his
purpose. When Douglass was about to separate
from him, having declined to join him in his un-
dertaking, Brown made one more pathetic appeal,

2i6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and putting his arms around him in a manner more
than friendly, he said: "Come with me, Doug-
lass; I will defend you with my life. I want you
for a special purpose. When I strike, the bees
will begin to swarm and I shall want you to help
me hive them."

Alas! how sadly mistaken he was in his theory
remains to be seen.

John Brown purchased or leased a small farm
about six miles from Harper's Ferry, on the-Mary-
landside, July, 1859, and established here his head-
quarters and arsenal. He had one hundred and
two Sharp's rifles, sixty-eight pistols, fifty-five
bayonets, twelve artillery swords, four hundred
and eighty-three pikes, one hundred and fifty
broken handles of pikes, sixteen picks, forty
shovels, besides quite a number of other appurte-
nances of war.

Captain Brown expected to make his attack on
Harper's Ferry on the night of October 24th,
1859; but while in Baltimore in September, he
was under the impression that there was a con-
spiracy in his camp. Fearing he would be betrayed
and his plans frustrated, he determined, without
informing his Northern friends, to strike the first
blow on the night of October 17th.

The story is soon told. He was made a prisoner
October 19th, and remained until November
7th without a change of clothing or medical aid.
Forty-two days from the time of his imprisonment
he was hanged, after a mock trial, by Governor
Wise of Virginia. That this so-called raid was
ill-timed and premature, all will agree; but the
motive which inspired him to action was certainly

A NEW CENTURY 217

a desire to imitate the example of Him who came
"to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captives, and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound."

Whittier very pathetically describes the scene:

"John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die;
And lo! a poor slave mother with her little child pressed nigh;
Then the bold blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face

grew mild,
As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's

child."

He had gone into Virginia to save life, not to
destroy it. This is proven by a statement made
before the fight at Harper's Ferry: "And novv^,
gentlemen, let me press this one thing on your
minds. You all know how dear life is to you, and
how dear your lives are to your friends, and in re-
membering that, consider that the lives of others
are as dear to them as yours are to you. Do not,
therefore, take the life of any one if you can pos-
sibly avoid it; but if it is necessary to take life in
order to save your own, then make sure work of
it." After the fight at Harper's Ferry he also
said: "I never did intend murder, or treason, or
the destruction of property, or to excite or incite
slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. The
design on my part was to free the slaves."

Congressman Vallandigham of Ohio, who ex-
amined him in court, said afterwards in a speech:
"It is in vain to underrate either the man or the
conspiracy. Captain John Brown is as brave and
resolute a man as ever headed an insurrection, and
in a good cause, and with a sufficient force, would
have been a consummate partisan commander.

2i8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

He has coolness, daring, persistency, stoic faith
and patience, and a firmness of will and purpose
unconquerable! He is furtherest possible removed
from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic or madman."

South Carolina, Missouri and Kentucky each
sent a rope to hang him. But the one from Ken-
tucky proving the strongest, was selected and used.
It seems a little paradoxical that Kentucky, the
home of Henry Clay the "Great Compromiser" of
slavery, and the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln
the great emancipator of slavery, should furnish
the rope to hang John Brown, the forerunner of
Lincoln, and one of the noblest and best men of
any age or country.

His last letter was written to Mrs. George L.
Stearns, his Boston friend at whose home he was
entertained, and is as follows:

"Charlestown, Jefferson Co., Va., 29th Nov.,
1859.

"Mrs. George L. Stearns,

Boston, Mass.

"My Dear Friend: — No letter I have received
since my imprisonment here has given me more
satisfaction or comfort than yours of 8th inst. I
am quite cheerful, and never more happy. Have
only time to write you a word. May God forever
reward you and all yours. My love to all who
love their neighbors. I have asked to be spared
from having any mock or hypocritical prayers
made over me when I am publicly murdered, and
that my only religious attendants be poor little,
dirty, ragged, bareheaded and barefooted slave

A NEW CENTURY 219

boys and girls, led by some old gray-headed slave
mother.

"Farewell, farewell. Your friend,

"John Brown."

Mr. Stearns helped to go through the formality
of a defense, but it was in vain.

A well organized plan was made to rescue him,
conducted by the brave Colonel James Montgomery
of Kansas, bat the prisoner sent word to them
that his sense of honor to his jailer, Captain Acvis,
prevented him from walking out should the door
be left open.

A satchel belonging to Captain Brown was
found when he was taken prisoner, containing let-
ters which implicated Frederick Douglass. Warned
by his friends, Douglass escaped first to Canada and
from there to England. Buchanan's marshals were
hot on his trail, coming to Rochester six hours after
he left. Governor Wise made requisition on the
executives of New York and Michigan, but the bird
had flown. To show the temper of the Governor
when he found his prey had escaped, I will quote
from his speech made in Richmond, December 21,
of the same year. He said, with tremendous ap-
plause: "Oh, if I had had one good, long, low,
black, rakish, well-armed steamer in Hampton
Roads, 1 would have placed her on the Newfound-
land Banks, with orders, if she found a British
packet with that Negro on board, to take him. And
by the eternal gods, he should have been taken—
taken with very particular instructions not to hang
him before I had the privilege of seeing him well
hung."

220 A NEW NEGRO FOR

It seems that the death of John Brown and his
followers had not mollified the rage of Governor
and people. It might be said of Brown that, like
Samson, he accomplished more in his death than
during his life, for he lighted the torch of freedom,
which was never extinguished^ For though John
Brown's body lay moulderng in the tomb, his soul
went marching on, until freedom v/as proclaimed
to four millions of slaves.

II. Calvin Fairbank:— The subject of this sketch
is living at Angelica, New York, now upwards of
eighty years of age. Although broken in health, he
still takes great interest in passing events and
keeps up an extensive correspondence with his
friends. We have exchanged several letters with
him and are glad to give him his true place
in history by the side of Garrison, Brown
and Lovejoy. Some years ago he wrote an inter-
esting history of his life, and has recently pub-
lished another book giving an exceedingly interest-
ing account of "How the Way was Prepared" for
the emancipation of slaves. He is a hero who has
spent long years in jail in testimony of his de-
votion to the cause of human freedom. His
career, one of daring and suffering, almost sur-
passing belief, has been unique and without paral-
lel. The story of his life is best told in his own
words and way:

"I was born in Pike, New York, eighty years
ago. In my childhood my father was a farmer,
but later he became a lumberman, engaged with an
uncle of mine in clearing up a tract of timber land
near Olean, the lumber from which they floated
down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers and sold in

A NEW CENTURY 221

the Cincinnati markets My father and mother were
Methodists, and one of the most vivid recollections
of my childhood is of going with them when I was
about twelve years eld to attend a quarterly meet-
ing lield in another town a dozen miles or so from
Hu/ne, N. Y. , where we then lived. We remained
ov^v night, and as the large attendance at the
meeting had filled every house in the town, I, be-
ing a boy, was sent to sleep at the home of an ex-
iiaye family, the head of which had made his es-
-cape from Virginia some years before. Child
though I was, the stories of the suffering and mis-
ery endured by slaves which the old Negro told
me that night, as we sat together on the stone
hearth in front of the open fireplace, settled the
coarse of my after-life. I resolved, if I lived, to
hc.lp right the great wrongs wdth w^hich I had thus
bvsjen made acquainted, and though it was not until
n.-any years later that I came to know of the ex-
istence of the Underground Railroad and the
American Anti-Slavery Society, my resolution
grew stronger as I grew older, and only needed
fitting opportunity to bear fruit. The opportunity
came in the spring of 1837, just before I was
twenty-one years of age, when my father sent me
down the river to Cincinnati in charge of a raft
of lumber. It was a morning in April, sharp,
crisp and clear, and we were rounding a bend in
the Ohio River just below Wheeling when I caught
sight of a strapping darky, an ax flung over his
shoulder, jogging along on the Virginia bank of
the river, singing as he went:

"De cold, frosty morning make a niggah feel good,
Wid de ax on de shoulder he go jogging to de wood."

222 A NEW NEGRO FOR

"*Halloo, there! where are you going?* I called
to him. *Gwine choppin' in de woods!' 'Chop-
ping for yourself?'

"'Han't got no self.' 'Slave, are you?' 'Dat's
what I is.' 'Why don't you run away?' 'Case
I don't knovv^ where to go.' 'I'll show you where
to go.' 'White man mighty onsartin; niggah more
so,' he said, shaking his head doubtfully.

"We talked for some time, I all the while urg-
ing him to make the break for the North, whither
his wife had already escaped. Finally he asked
where I was from, and when I tcld him from New
York state my reply seemed to settle it, for he
dropped his ax and jumped onto the raft. I pushed
off and we swung over to the Ohio side. As we
touched the shore the darky, whose name was
Johnson, danced a jig for joy. I directed him to
the house of a man named Snyder, who lived near
by and who, I had been told, kept a station on the
Underground Railroad, and continued on my way
down the river. When I came back I learned that
Johnson had remained in hiding for some time
with the Snyders and had finally gone, no one
knew where. I had now got my hand in as a
slave stealer, and was anxious for more work to
do. On the same trip down the river, near the
mouth of the Little Miami, I helped across the
Ohio a family of seven, Stewart by name, four
men and three women, all of them over six feet
tall.

"After I had marketed my lumber at Cincinnati
I took passage on a steamer for Pittsburg. The
steamer stopped at Maysville, Kentucky, to take
on freight, and while it was loading I went for

A NEW CENTURY 223

a walk about the town. On one of the back streets
I met an extremely pretty girl of sixteen or seven-
teen who seemed in deep distress. I asked her what
was the matter and she told me that she was a
slave — you would not have known it from her color
— and was trying to escape from her master, a
man who lived a few miles out in the country
from town, and who also was her father. I took
the girl back to the steamer and introduced her to
my sister, explaining to the clerk and captain that
I had met her in Maysville by appointment. No
questions were asked, and we made the trip to
Pittsburg in safety. She was exceedingly bright
and a skilled musician, and, I remember, made a
deep impression on some of the male passengers,
one of whom went so far as to ask the privilege of
corresponding with her. She settled in New York,
finally married well, and is now living in San
Francisco in more than comfortable circumstances.

"In June, 1838, I was again in Cincinnati sell-
ing lumber, and while there heard of a slave
family of fourteen, a few miles below the city, in
Kentucky, who were anxious to escape. I engaged
a scow and with a Negro named Casey paddled
them across the river to the Ohio side. We were
closely followed by their owner and a posse of
officers, but succeeded in throwing them off the
scent. Next day Henry Boyd, a wealthy Cincin-
nati colored man, guided the runaways in safety
to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, whence they were sent
further North. This made twenty-three slaves I
helped to liberty before I was as many years old.

"I was anxious for a better education than the
common schools I had thus far attended afforded

224 A NEW NEGRO FOR

me, and to secure it entered the seminary at Lima,
N. Y., in 1839. Later I became a student at
Oberlin College, Ohio, from which institution J
graduated in 1844. While a student at Oberlin i
made the acquaintance of Gerrit Smith, Joshua
R. Giddings, Theodore Parker and other abolition
leaders, and became thoroughly imbued with their
ideas, coming to hold with Smith that the Federal
constitution, instead of countenancing slavery,
positively forbade it. During my college vacations,
in order to obtain money with which to continue
my studies, I taught school in Lexington, Ken-
tucky. One of the first friends I made in Lexing-
ton was Cassius M. Clay. He was then, as now, a
large-hearted, noble-minded man, and an attach-
ment sprang up between us which to-day is as
warm as ever. In those days he was editing the
True American, the only anti-slavery paper pub-
lished in the South. His boldness in attacking the
lion in its very den, as it were, produced the most
violent opposition, and upon a number of occasions
I was among those who guarded his printing plant
from destruction by mobs. Once, I remember, I
manned for two days and nights a cannon loaded
with grape and canister posted in front of his
office door. There were one or two more cannons
about the premises, and a mob, had it visited us,
would have received a warm reception.

"One day in August, 1841, word came to me
that an escaped slave, named Coleman, with his
wife and three children, were in hiding in Lexing-
ton. The poor creatures had made their way
from East Tennessee, but their owner was hot on
their track, and they were afraid to go further

A NEW CENTURY 225

without a guide I left my school in charge of
another, and started with them toward the Ohio
River at night and on foot. We traveled for six
nights, lying in hiding during the day. We finally
reached the Ohio, opposite Ripley, and crossed
the river in a skiff. Just after we had crossed I
saw a Negro boy run along the Kentucky shore and
disappear. I suspected he v^as trying to escape,
and went back to help him. I found him behind
a log in the swamp, and got away with him,
though men with bloodhounds were hunting the
boy at the time.

"In April, 1842, I was in Covington, Kentucky,
and while there was told of the case of Emily
Ward, a handsome girl of eighteen, two-thirds
white, who had been sold and was about to be
taken South to become the mistress of her pur-
chaser. She was kept in an attic facing the river.
I went at nightfall, and attracting her attention by
tossing pebbles against the windows, threw up to
her,tied to a stone, a note telling her I had come to
help her escape. By the same means I got up to
her first a cord with a bundle of men's clothes
fastened to it, and finally a stout rope. She put
on the clothes, and crawling through a rear win-
dow of the room in which she was locked, slid
down the rope to the ground. When we were a
few feet away from the house we met her master,
who apologized for unintentionally brushing against
me in the darkness. The girl's case was known to
everyone in Covington, and I did not dare to hire a
boat to take us across to ^ >ncinnati for fear of de-
tection; so we got on boa^d a raft, eight by twenty
rods, containing one milh' i feet of boards and one

22G A NEW NEGRO FOR

hundred thousand shingles, worked by twelve men
besides myself, the pilot. Once in Cincinnati, we
were safe. I took Emily to the house of Levi
Coffin, Superintendent of the Underground Railroad
in that department, and turned her over to him.
He found her a comfortable home and she did well.

"Five days after helping Emily Ward to escape
I again crossed the Ohio at night on a log. This
time I had for a companion John Hamilton, a
mulatto. He was a man of superior natural ability
and made his mark. After the war he returned
South and became a State Senator in South Car-
olina, only to be murdered by the Ku-Klux. This
was my last log trip, but within a week I rescued
the Stanton family, father, mother and six children.
They had been sold and were about to be sent to a
Louisiana sugar plantation. I packed them in the
bottom of a load of straw bought just out of Cov-
ington ostensibly for livery use, and drove them
in safety to Cincinnati, where Levi CofBn sent
them North over the Underground Railroad.

"In August of the same year I spent several
weeks in Montgomer}^ County, Kentucky, as the
guest of Richard McFarland. A girl of sixteen was
anxious to escape and applied to me for help.
Starting on a clear, moonlight night, we drove be-
fore noon next day to Lexington, a distance of ninety
miles. On the way we were overhauled by a brother
of McFarland, who was searching for a lost slave
When I heard the man's name my heart rose in
my mouth, but by putting on a bold front I suc-
ceeded in getting off without disclosing the identity
of myself and companion. My scruples against so
gross a breach of hospitality as stealing the prop-

A NEW CENTURY ^27

erty of my host were fully overcome by tha fact
that both the girl and her mother were the chil-
dren of their master. Kate was a pretty blonde,
with blue eyes and flaxen hair, showing not the
slightest trace of Negro blood. From Lexington I
took her to Cincinnati and gave her into the care
of Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the National Era, one
of the noblest and bravest soldiers in the abolition
army. Later, Kate's mother, brother and sister
escaped. The children were all educated by Mr.
Bailey and are still living in prosperous circum-
stances.

"The most remarkable incident of this period of
my life occurred in March, 1843. One day in the
latter part of that month, while looking through
the jail at Lexington, my attention was attracted
to one of the prisoners, a young woman of ex-
quisite figure and singular beauty. 1 asked the
jailer who she was, and to my surprise, for she
looked pure Caucasian, he told me that she was a
slave girl named Eliza and the daughter of her
master, who a few days later was to sell her upon
the block for the New Orleans market, impelled
by the jealousy of his wife because the slave girl
was superior to her own daughters. Then I talked
with the girl; I found that she was intelligent as
well as beautiful, and I resolved to exert every
effort to save so magnificent a creature from so
sad a fate. I told her I would go to Cincinnati
and do my best to raise the money with which to
purchase her freedom; if I obtained it I would be
back before the sale came off; if I did not return
she would at least have the sorry satisfaction of
knowing that I had done all I could. I hurried to

228 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Cincinnati and sought out that old hero and apostle
of freedom, Levi Coffin. He gave me prompt and
generous assistance, and in a short time we raised
seven hundred dollars. I then laid the case be-
fore Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Senator, Sec-
retary of the Treasury, and Chief Justice, who
gave me two hundred more and went with me to
see Nicholas Longworth. The latter was worth
millions, but we were afraid nothing would come
of our appeal to him, but decided to make it, as it
cost us nothing. *Mr. Longworth,' said Chase,
'do you consider yourself a Christian?'

"T am not a very good one,' was the reply.

"'Well, we have got a case here that appeals to
both humanity and Christianity. Mr. Fairbank
will tell you about it.' I told the story. Long-
worth listened in silence, and when I was through
drew his check-book from a drawer and began fill-
ing out a check. A moment later Longworth
wheeled around and handed me a check for one
thousand dollars. A number of well-to-do Negroes
raised and gave me several hundred dollars more,
and when I went back to Lexington, the day be-
fore the time appointed for the sale, I carried two
thousand two hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Moreover, in my pocketbook was an agreement
signed by Chase, Longworth and William Howard,
another rich Cincinnatian, empowering me to
draw upon them, if necessary, to the extent of
twenty-five thousand. The sale took place and
was attended by fully two thousand people, drawn
there by descriptions of the girl's comeliness and
rumors of the effort that was to be made to save
her. The best people of the town were there, and

A NEW CENTURY 229

a number of strangers from Boston, New York and
Philadelphia were also present, curious and horror-
stricken. But one man appeared to bid agamst
me, a Frenchman from New Orleans, who 1 was
told made it his business to attend sales cf young
girls and purchase them for a fate worse than
death. Eliza, when placed upon the block, seemed
ready to drop from fear and shame. The auction-
eer began his work by pointing out her beauties,
concluding with, 'What am I offered for her.?'
'Five hundred,' I cried. The New Orleans man
instantly raised my bid, until I raised his last bid
to thirteen hundred, when he turned to me with
an ugly look and said: 'How high are you going
to bid.?' 'Higher than you do, Monsieur,' I replied.
He turned away and raised my bid, and we kept
bidding until he turned to me and asked: 'How
high are you going.?' 'None of your business, sir,
but you haven't enough money to buy this girl.'
The auctioneer grew impatient and cried, 'Give,
give.' Finally he dropped his hammer and tearing
open Eliza's waist, exposed a bust as perfect as
ever artist sculptured. 'Look, gentlemen,' he
cried. 'Who is going to lose a chance like this.
Here's a girl fit to be the mistress of a king.' 'Too
bad!' 'What a shame!' ran through the crowd at
sight of this indignity; but only to be followed by
greater exposure of the poor girl's person. The
hammer fell at fourteen hundred and eighty dol-
lars, and the girl was mine. An instant later she
tottered back into the arms of her aunt in a deep
swoon. 'She is yours, young man,' said the
auctioneer. 'What are you going to do with her.?'
'Free her, sir,' and my answer awoke a cheer,

230 A NEW NEGRO FOR

which, rising to a Kentucky shout, rent the air.
As soon as they could be made out, I handed
Eliza the papers which formally set her free.
Four days after the sale I took Eliza to Cincinnati,
where she became a member of the family of
Gamaliel Bailey. Under his care she received a
finished education, married well, and to-day is a
cheerful, charming matron. Only the members of
her immediate family know the history of her
early years; so you will understand why I do not
give her full name.

•'Lewis Hayden, who served as a member of
the Massachusetts general court and in the Legis-
lature of the same state, and who was long ago
one of the honored citizens of Boston, was when a
young man a slave, the property of Baxter and
Grant, owners of the Brennan House, in Lexing-
ton. Hayden's wife, and his son, a lad of ten
years, when I first knew them, were the slaves
of Patrick Baine. On a September evening in 1 844,
accompanied by Miss D A. Webster, a young Ver-
mont lady who was associated with me in teach-
ing, I left Lexington with the Haydens in a hack,
crossed the Ohio on a ferry the next morning,
changed horses and drove to an Underground Rail-
road depot at Hopkins, Ohio, where we left Hayden
and his family. When Miss Webster and I re-
turned to Lexington, after two days' absence, we
were both arrested, charged by their master with
helping Hayden's wife and son to escape. We
were jointly indicted, but Miss Webster was tried
first and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in
the penitentiary at Frankfort.

"My cell-mate in the jail in which I was con

A NEW CENTURY 231

fined before my trial was Richard Moore, a young
mulatto, a slave under sentence of death for the
murder of his mistress, a Mrs. Turner. The thing
seemed impossible, but I determined to attempt
his and my own escape. A week or so before the
time set for his execution I suggested a plan for
four or five slaves to break jail, and in this way
secured two bars of iron, which I hid away. Early
on the Tuesday night previous to the Fiiday upon
which Moore was to hang, we attacked the wall of
our cell. All night we worked without rest; the
palms of my hands were worn to the tendons. We
had reached the last bowlder on the outside of the
four-foot wall when the city clock struck five. We
were half an hour too late. 'I am a dead man,'
said Moore, and fell almost to the floor. When
what we had done was discovered we were hand-
cuffed together, and remained so day and night
until Moore was executed. Do you wonder that I
have never forgotten this experience.-*

"While my case was still pending I learned that
the Governor was inclined to pardon Miss Web-
ster, but first insisted that I should be tried.
When called up for trial, in February, 1845, I
pleaded guilty and received a sentence of fifteen
years. A little later Miss Webster received her
pardon. I served four years and eleven months,
was released August 23, 1849, by Governor John
J. Crittenden, the able and patriotic man who
afterwards saved Kentucky to the Union. His
action was prompted by petitions in my behalf
from all parts of the North. I returned to the
North^immediately after my release, and did what
I couM do to prevent the passage of the Fugitive

232 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Slave Will. After it became a law by the signature
of President Fillmore, 1 resisted its execution
whenever and wherever possible.

"An incident which happened soon after I re-
turned North showed me that my labors for the
slaves had not been in vain. In the autumn of
1849 I was in Detroit, Michigan. In talking over
my early experiences one day with General Lewis
Cass I told him of Sam Johnson, the first Negro
whom I had freed.

"'Why,' said the General, 'Johnson lives just
out of this city. He has told me the same story
a dozen times.' The General informed me that
Johnson drove into the city almost daily, and next
morning I waited at the place to which I had been
directed for his appearance. He finally came,
seated in a wagon loaded with grain and drawn
by a six-horse team. 'Whose team is that.'^* I
asked. 'Mine,' was the reply. 'Do you know
that I am j^our master.?' I continued. 'Hain't
got no master, ' said he gloomily. Then recognizing
who I was, he leaped from his seat with a joyful,
'Blessed if you hain't de chap dat sot me free,'
and caught me in his arms. He took me to his
home, a few miles from Detroit, and I found him to
be a well-to-do farmer, owning a well-stocked
farm of one hundred and sixty acres, with his wife
and children about him. Living near the John-
sons, and like them, contented and comfortable, I
found the Stewart and Coleman families, for whom
I had also lighted the path to freedom.

"My father had died of cholera at Lexington in"
1849, while seeking to secure my release, and in
October, 185 1, I went South to get the be dy and

A NEW CENTURY 233

bring it back to our old home here in New York.
While waiting in Louisville for the cooler weather
which would permit a fulfillment of my mission, I
rescued a woman named Julia and her child.
Crossing the Ohio in a skiff at night, I took them
to an underground depot at Buckrams, Indiana, I
saw the mother afterward at Windsor, Canada,
where she had married well. Two weeks later I
carried off Tamor, a bright mulatto girl of twenty
belonging to A. L. Shotwell of Louisville. I knew
the undertaking was an extremely dangerous one
and I laid my plans carefully. The girl met me
one evening at a certain gate, dressed for the oc-
casion. We walked through the busiest part of
the city to the banks of the Ohio, which we crossed
in a leaky skiff, which I propelled with a piece of
board while Tamor kept the skiff from sinking by
constant bailing with a large cup which we had
brought along for the purpose. Resting as we
might, during the night, chased from one retreat to
another, I drove with her early next morning to a
railroad station twenty-four miles from the river,
and took her on the cars to Salem, Indiana, where
I left her with a friend. This was the last slave
whom I was ever able to help off. In fifteen
years I had, unaided and alone, freed forty-seven
slaves, besides lending assistance in many other
cases.

"The freeing of Tamor again cost me my own
liberty. One week afterwards I was kidnaped
from Indiana soil, and without process of law taken
to Louisville and lodged in jail. I was tried in
February, 1852, the owner of Tamor appearing as
my prosecutor, and though the evidence against

234 ^ V^^^' NEGRO FOR

me was of the flimsiest character, my reputation as
slave-stealer secured rny conviction. My sentence
was fifteen years at hard labor in the state prison.
My friends did little for me, and that was one rea-
son why I fared so hard. They were afraid, so
intense was the feeling against me in Louisville,
that if they succeeded in securing my acquittal by
a jury, a mob would take it up and lynch me. My
own mind, however, was at rest on that point.
I would have taken part in any lynching that
might have been attempted and looked out for
myself.

"I returned to the prison at Frankfort in March,
1852. Captain Newton Craig, the warden under
whom I had served my first term, was still in
charge. What was known as the lease system
was then in vogue, the prison being leased to the
warden for a certain sum a year, the warden look-
ing to the labor of the prisoners for his profit.
The prison during all the years that it was my
home was in a horrible condition, unspeakably
filthy and miserably ventilated. During my first
imprisonment Craig had treated me kindly, but
his bearing when I came before him for the second
time plainly told me that my lot was to be a hard
one. x\fter being locked up for two days I was
brought before the warden in the prison chapel,
the Governor and other prominent citizens being
present, and denounced for what I had done. *Mr.
Davis,' said the warden, 'take Fairbank to the
hackling house and kill him.' To the hackling
house I accordingly went. This was where the
hemp, after being broken, was hackled. After a
month's work in the hackling shop I was sent to

A NEW CENTURY 235

the spinning shop, and finally to the weaving shop,
where I remained for ten and a half years. While
in the hackling shop I received my first flogging
with the rawhide on the bare back, the blows cut-
ting deep into the quivering flesh.

"Zeb Ward became warden of the prison in 1854.
He leased it at six thousand a year and made one
hundred thousand out of the lease in four years.
To do this he literally killed two hundred and fifty
out of three hundred and seventy-five prisoners.
Ward was one of the strangest men I ever knew,
physically handsome, socially magnetic, but utterly
devoid of heart or conscience. He was a gambler,
libertine and murderer under cover of the law.
When he took the keys of the prison he said:
"Men, I'm a man of few words and prompt
action. I came here to make money, and I'll do
it if I kill you all."

"He was as good as his promise. During his
wardenship and that of J. W. South, who suc-
ceeded him in 1858, I received on my bared body
thirty-five thousand stripes, laid on with a strap of
half-tanned leather a foot and a half long, often
dipped in water to increase the pain. All the
floggings I received under Ward were for failure
to perform the tasks set for me to do, generally
weaving hemp — two hundred and eighty yards a
day being what I was expected to perform, an
utter impossibility. I was whipped, bowed over
a chair or some other object, often seventy lashes
four times a day, every ten blows inflicting pain
worse than death. Once I received one hundred
and seven blows at one time, particles of flesh
being thrown upon the wall several feet away.

236 A NEW NEGRO FOR

My weight, which was one hundred and eighty
pounds when I entered the prison, was several
times reduced to one hundred and eighteen pounds.
1 have seen new men in the hackHng house fall at
their work, weak from flogging, and when taken
to the hospital die before morning from pneu-
monia and the strap. A remarkable constitution
and great muscular strength were the only thing
that saved my life. As it was, I was an old man
at forty.

"But there was an occasional ray of sunshine in
my prison life. Interest in my case constantly
increased, and at last public opinion set in in my
favor.

"In February, 1858, having been pressed for
three years to do so, I stood in the prison chapel
and addressed an audience of several thousand
people, including the Governor and other state
officials. In the course of my sermon — I had
been ordained a minister just before my second
arrest — I told them that war was inevitable, and
that when it came slavery would be swept away
like chaff. Lincoln was elected President, and in
less than five years war followed.

"In September and October, 1862, General
Bragg held Frankfort for six weeks, and during
that period three times rebel soldiers came to kill
me. Once with a rope in hand they came upon
me in the prison yard and asked me where they
'could find that damned nigger-stealer, Fairbank. '
I sent them another way, then hurried to Warden
Whitesides, a kindly and humane man, who took
charge of the prison in 1862, and he hide me. On
their second visit we got word of their coming and

A NEW CENTURY 237

I was in hiding when they arrived. Their last visit
was unexpected, and they found me in the prison
kitchen. Brought to bay, I had to fight for my
life. I caught up an ax and planting myself in the
doorway, said: 'Come on, boys; you are not afraid
of me!'' None of them seemed inclined to attack
me first, and finally the whole party, several hun-
dred strong, marched out.

"The freedom for which I had waited so long
came two years later. Among those whose friend-
ship I gained during my confinement was Richard
T. Jacobs, a wealthy planter of strong anti-slavery
tendencies, who had married a daughter of Thomas
H. Benton. Jacobs often talked about me with
his brother-in-law, John C. Fremont, and the lat-
ter in turn told my story to President Lincoln,
who, as after events showed, was deeply impressed
by it. Early in 1864 General Speed S. Fry was
sent from Washington to Kentucky with orders to
enroll all Negroes whom he found fit for military
service. Thomas E. Bramlette, then Governor
of Kentucky, attempted to prevent General Fry
from carrying out his orders, as President Lincoln
had expected he would, and was ordered to Wash-
ington. Jacob s, who was Lieutenant Governor,
became Acting Governor. On his first day in
office General Fry said to him: 'Governor, the
President thinks it would be well to make this
Fairbank's day.'

"He called upon me that day and told me that
he was going to turn me loose. Counting my
previous imprisonment, I had spent seventeen
years and four months of the best part of my life
in prison. On the evening after my release I

238 A NEW NEGRO FOR

enjoye / at the Capital Hotel in Frankfort a
cordial reception by the people of the city and
distinguished persons from other parts of Kentucky,
which I shall ever remember with pleasure as 3
reunion after victory. Twenty-four hours late
I crossed the Ohio, and do not believe me senti-
mental when I tell you that when I found myself
once more on the free soil of the Buckeye State \
knelt down and kissed the ground.

"In the following June occurred the event an-
ticipation of which had strengthened and encour-
aged me through all those dark and dreary years
Previous to my second imprisonment I had been
betrothed to Mandana Tileston of Williamsburg,
Massachusetts. True as the magnet to the poles,
when misfortune again befell me she left her New
England home, engaged as a teacher, first in
Hamilton and then at Oxford, Ohio, waited and
watched over the border, supplied me with every
comfort within her power, worked and petitioned
for my release without ceasing, and faithful to the
last, refused honorable alliances to wait the un-
certain fate of a prisoner. It was a happy day
indeed when we were married."

III. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.

"Seven Grecian cities fought for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.*'

If we estimate his life by labors performed,
sufferings, amounting almost to martyrdom, en-
dured; unswerving devotion to the principles of
equal rights to all, William Lloyd Garrison was
certainly the greatest of anti-slave leaders. He

JOHN B. FRENCH,

Of Chicago, represents energy and pluck. Is one of the

most successful Caterers in the country.

239

240 A NEW NEGRO FOR

was born in Newburyport, Mass., December loth,
1805. His mother's maiden name was Fanny
Lloyd; and his father, Abijah Garrison, though a
sea captain, possessed some Hterary ability and
ambition.

It is a little remarkable that the house in which
our hero was born was overshadowed by the
church under whose altar the remains of George
Whitefield were buried. Thus at the very spot
where the life's work of this great advocate of
slavery ended, God in his providence raised up a
greater and more zealous advocate of anti-slavery,
to rouse the people from the lethargy into which
Whitefield and his disciples wooed them.

In 1808 Abijah deserted his wife and children,
never returning, leaving them to struggle for exist-
ence as best they could. William Lloyd, or Lloyd
as his mother called him, was apprenticed when
quite young to learn the shoemaker's trade. Not
liking the work, he was next set to learn cabinet-
making. This proving uncongenial, his mother
secured him a place in a printing office, where he
mastered the business in happy contentment.

When but a youth, he wrote for the "Newbury-
port Herald," and Boston papers; then at the end
of his apprenticeship, became the editor of a new
paper in Newburyport, called "The Free Press."

This paper was noted for its high moral tone,
but like the most of such "felt wants," its exist-
ence was brief. We next find him in Boston,
editor of "The National Philanthropist," said to
be the first paper started to advocate the doctrine
of total abstinence from intoxicating drinks. The
motto of the paper was this truism, "Moderate

A NEW CENTURY 24J

drinking is the down-hill road to drunkenness,"
which was at once expressive and original.

While editing this paper he became acquainted
with Benjamin Lundy, and they felt mutual affin-
ity of kindred spirits from the first.

In 1828 Mr. Garrison became editor of "The
Journal of the Times," in Bennington, Vermont, a
paper established to support John Quincy Adams
for the Presidency. He earned his salary by ably
supporting Mr. Adams, but he also earned adverse
criticism by being the champion of temperance,
peace and the emancipation of slaves.

Among his exchanges was Lundy's "Genius of
Universal Emancipation." The reading of this
little monthly paper intensified his hatred of
slavery; so he wrote a petition to Congress for its
abolition in the District of Columbia. Having
obtained a large number of signatures by sending
it to the different postmasters of Vermont, he sent
it to Congress, where it caused no little commotion
on being read. In the fall of 1829, Mr. Garrison
went into partnership with his Quaker friend
Lundy; so "The Genius of Universal Emanci-
pation" was enlarged and issued weekly at Balti-
more, Md. But a difficulty presented itself to
the success of the paper under their joint manage-
ment. Mr. Lundy favored a gradual emancipation,
while Mr. Garrison advocated immediate eman-
cipation. At last, at the suggestion of Lundy, each
wrote from his own standpoint, signing his initials
to the articles.

The rage of the slave-holders knew no bounds

when Garrison demolished their sophistries and

subterfuges, by which they eased conscience, with

242 A NEW NEGRO FOR

an invincible logic, and he insisted with voice of
thunder that it was their duty to "break every
yoke and let the oppressed go free."

About this time a vessel belonging to Francis
Todd of Garrison's native town, Newburyport,
took on a cargo of eighty slaves at Baltimore for
New Orleans. He at once denounced it in his
paper, saying it was not one whit better than if
the slaves had been brought from Africa; and the
law denounced foreign slave-trade as piracy. For
this he was arrested and fined fifty dollars, in de-
fault of which he was sent to jail. To show that
his brave spirit was neither crushed nor daunted
by imprisonment, he spent his time in writing
against slavery, and inscribing sonnets on the walls
of his cell. One of them was as follows:

"Prisoner! within these gloomy walls close pent,

Guiltless of horrid crime or venal wrong —
Bear nobly up against the punishment,

And in thy innocence be great and strong!
Perchance thy fault was love to all mankind;

Thou didst oppose some vile, oppressive law,
Or strive all human fetters to unbind,

Or wouldst not bear the implements of war; —
What then? Dost thou so soon repent the deed?

A martyr's crown is richer than a king's!
Think it an honor with the Lord to bleed,

And glory midst in tensest sufferings!
Though beat, imprisoned, put to open shame,
Time shalt embalm and magnify thy name."

John G. Whittier, the rising young Quaker poet,
had recently succeeded George D. Prentice as edi-
tor of "The New England Review," at Hartford,
Connecticut, after Prentice had gone to Kentucky

A NEW CENTURY 243

to write the life of Henry Clay and edit "The
Louisville Daily Journal."

He was a friend to Mr. Garrison, who had pub-
lished some of his maiden poems while editing
"The Free Press," and an admirer of Henry Clay.
Young Whittier knew that Mr. Clay was a slave-
holder, but he also believed him a true friend of
freedom, judging from his effort to check the spread
of slavery and to ultimately abolish it in Ken-
tucky. So he wrote the great statesman on behalf
of the "guiltless prisoner," at Baltimore, begging
him to pay his fine and "let the captive go free."
Mr. Clay responded promptly, asking for partic-
ulars and indicating an intention of complying with
the request. While matters were thus pending,
Arthur Tappan, a wealthy merchant in New York,
paid the fine and costs; so the prisoner was
released.

The partnership between Mr. Garrison and Mr.
Lundy was now dissolved, with the most cordial
feeling of friendship, which existed ever afterwards.

Seeing the apathy in regard to slavery, even in
liberty-loving Massachusetts, Garrison resolved
to start a paper to be called "The Liberator,"
right under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and near
Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty."

The first number of this paper appeared in Jan-
uary, 183 1, containing this expressive motto, "Our
Country is the World, Our Countrymen are all
Mankind." At the expiration of four months "The
Liberator" appeared with an engraved head in-
cluding a pictorial representation of an auction,
with a bill tacked up offering for sale "slaves,
horses and other cattle." Near by is a whipping-

244 ^ NE^ NEGRO FOR

post at which a Negro slave is receiving punish-
ment. In the background is seen the capitol at
Richmond, with a flag floating over the dome in-
scribed with the word "Liberty." Even Garri-
son's friends trembled at his fearless denunciation
of slavery. One even suggested that he change
the name of his paper to "The Safety Lamp;" but
his only reply was, "I will be as harsh as truth,
and as uncompromising as justice; I am in ear-
nest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse, I
will not retreat a single inch ; and I will be heard."

The following outrage on free speech is quoted
from the Columbia, S. C, "Telescope" of this pe-
riod: "Let us declare, through the public jour-
nals of our country, that the question of slavery
is not and shall not be open to discussion — that
the very moment any private individual attempts
to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, in the
same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast
upon the dunghill."

New Orleans offered twenty thousand dollars
to any man or set of men who would seize Arthur
Tappan of New York, Garrison's benefactor.
While in the year 1831, the Legislature of
Georgia, the governor, Wilson Lumpbin, concur-
ring, passed a resolution offering a reward of five
thousand dollars for the arrest, prosecution and
conviction under the laws of that state, of William
Lloyd Garrison, editor of "The Liberator."

The record of it is found in the laws of Georgia
for 1 83 1, page 255. This of course was simply a
bribe to any ruffian to seize and kidnap these brave
defenders of Liberty.

On January sixth, 1832, in the midst of a tem-

A NEW CENTURY 245

pest of wind and hail, "The New England Anti-
Slavery Society" was organized, in the basement
of the African Baptist church in Belknap Street,
Boston. Of those present only twelve persons,
all white, signed the constitution, as follows:

William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Johnson, Robert
B. Hall, Arnold Buffum, Wilham J. Snelling,
John E. Fuller, Moses Thacher, Joshua Coffin,
Stillman B. Newcomb, Benjamin C. Bacon, Isaac
Knapp, Henry K. Stockton. These might be
called the "Twelve Apostles of Abolition;" but
with this humble origin the society grew into a
mighty influence against slavery. This was the first
association organized on the principle of immedi-
ate emancipation. Arnold Buffum was chosen
President, and William L. Garrison correspond-
ing secretary.

The Quakers were in the main the friends of the
oppressed, and opposers of slavery, but even this
sect was by no means a unit in this particular, as
the following colloquy shows: "Well, Perez, I
hope thee's done running after the Abolitionists,"
said a leading Friend to one of his humbler
brethren. "Verily I have," said Perez; "I've
caught up with and gone just a little ahead of
them."

Henry Clay, and many statesmen and divines
of national reputation, favored the idea of colo-
nizing the negroes in Africa, and a strong organ-
ization know as "The American Colonization So-
ciety" was formed. Mr. Garrison, having received
protests against this society from a number of
prominent colored men of many Northern cities,
published their protest, together with his own views,

246 A NEW NEGRO FOR

in a large pamphlet in the spring of 1832, called
"Thoughts on African Colonization." In it he
shows ten objections to the said society: "i. It
is pledged not to oppose the system of slavery.
2. It apologizes for slavery and slaveholders. 3.
It recognizes slaves as property. 4. It increases
the value of slaves. 5. It is the enemy of immedi-
ate abolition. 6. It is nourished by fear and sel-
fishness. 7. It aims at the utter expulsion of the
blacks. 8. It is the disparager of the free blacks.
9. It denies the possibility of elevating the blacks
in this country. 10. It deceives and misleads the
nation."

The society never fully recovered from this
pamphlet, which showed them up in their true
light. This colonization society, while claiming
to be in the interest of the Negro, never thought
of consulting a colored man, bond or free, any
more than a society for the prevention of cruelty
to animals would consult the animals they are
trying to protect. In sending the "niggers" from
a civilized to a barbarous land, it was —

"Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to 'go' and die. "

Mr. Garrison crossed the ocean no less man
five times, his first trip occurring in the spring
of 1833. In London he was invited to an honor-
ary seat in conference on the slavery question,
where he mingled with such men as Wilberforce,
Brougham, Macaulay, O'Connell, Burton and
Clarkson. He put into their hands his "Thoughts
on African Colonization," and brought home a
"Protest" against this colonization scheme, signed

A NEW CENTURY 247

by four of the great names I have mentioned and
others of equal weight.

He was sent as a delegate to the Anti-Slavery
Conference of London in 1840; but when he
learned that the conference refused to receive the
lady delegates on their credentials, he and those
who came with him took seats in the gallery as
spectators.

Mr. Garrison made his third voyage in 1846,
this time by invitation of the Glasgow Emanci-
pation Society, who desired him to lecture against
the Free Church, for collecting money from the
Southern slaveholders.

His fourth visit to Europe was made in May,
1867, two years after the close of the war of the
rebellion. He joined his children in Paris, and
after attending the Exposition, went to London,
where a great public breakfast was held in his
honor, at St. James' Hall. Among those present
were Mr. F. H. Morse, the American consul in
London, John Bright, John Stewart Mill, and
other members of Parliament. John Bright pre-
sided, and made the first speech. He crossed the
Atlantic for the fifth and last time in company
with his son Frank in 1877.

The Boston Mob, of "gentlemen of property
and standing," occurred October twenty-first, 1835.
The occasion of it was an advertised meeting of
the Boston Female Anti-Slavery society, to take
place at Anti-Slavery Hall, 46 Washington Street.

The mayor of Boston took no steps to prevent
or disperse the mob other than by being present
and commanding the ladies to retire. Seeing they
could hope for no protection, they adjourned to

248 ^A NEW NEGRO FOR

meet again at the home of one of their number.
The mayor now advised Garrison to escape by a
window at the rear of the building. This he at-
tempted to do, but was seized by the mob and
dragged through some of the prominent streets of
Boston with a rope about his body, amid the jeer-
ing and curses of men thirsting for his blood. At
last the two strong men who supported him on
either side, and a few friends and policemen, with
superhuman effort forced their way with him into
the city hall. From here he was committed to
jail ostensibly as a disturber of the peace. After
being hustled into a carriage in waiting at the
door, which the mob tried in vain to upset or cap-
ture, he was driven by a circuitous loute to the
jail and locked behind the prison bars. Was he
crushed and discouraged? No, a thousand times
no! It is true a new suit of clothes was torn to
shreds; it is true he was buffeted and bruised; it
is true he barely escaped with his life; but he
slept as sweetly that night as if he had been in
the bosom of his family. The next morning he
wrote on the walls of his cell the following lines: —

"William Lloyd Garrison was put into this cell
on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 12th, 1835, to save
him from the violence of a 'respectable' and in-
fluential mob who sought to destroy him for preach-
ing the abominable and dangerous doctrine that,
'all men are created equal,' and that all oppres-
sion is odious in the sight of God.

"Reader, let this inscription remain till the last
slave in this despotic land be loosed from his fet-
ters,"

A NEW CENTURY 249

"When peace within the bosom reigns,

And conscience gives the approving voice, ^
Though bound, the human form in chains.
Yet can the soul aloud rejoice.
•"Tis true my footsteps are confined,
I cannot roam beyond this cell,
But what can circumscribe the mind?
To chain the winds attempt as well!"

"Confine me as a prisoner— but bind me not as a slave.
Punish me as a prisoner— but hold me not as a chattel.
Torture me as a man— but drive me not as a beast.
Doubt my sanity— but acknowledge my immortality."

Mr. Garrison, like the immortal Bunyan, seemed
to have his loftiest inspiration when behind the
prison bars. Like flowers which exude their fra-
grance only when crushed or bruised, persecution
drove him to poetry. Garrison was released from
prison in the afternoon of the next day, and at
the request of the city authorities, took his wife,
who was in critical health, and left the city for a
few days, until the excitement abated. But he
Hved to edit "The Liberator," until his demands
were granted, and four million slaves were made
free. This having been accomplished, in part
through the influence of his paper, he deemed it
unwise "to run the mill after the grist was out,"
and the last issue was published the last week in
December, 1865, making the paper cover the full
period of thirty-five years. But he continued the
same kind friend to the freedmen he had been to
the slave, until his labor ended with his life in
New York City, Saturday night about eleven o'clock
of May 24th, 1879, in the seventy-fourth year of
his age.

250 A NEW NEGRO FOR

IV. ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY.

Perhaps with the exception of John Brown's
attack at Harper's Ferry, or the bombardment of
Fort Sumter, no event in connection with slavery
produced more widespread excitement north and
south than the murder of Lovejoy at Alton,
Illinois, Nov., 1837.

Before describing this startling event, it is well
to consider something of the man, and the circum-
stances which led up to his untimely and cruel
murder.

He was born in Albion, Maine, November, 1802,
and was thirty-five years of age when killed by
the mob. His father, Daniel Lovejoy, was a Con-
gregational minister and a graduate of the well
known college at Waterville, Maine.

When Elijah was a young man there was a
great tide of emigration from New England to the
mighty West; drifting with this tide, he came to
St. Louis, where after teaching school for a time,
he became editor of a W^hig paper called the St.
Louis Times. The ready pen and stirring style of
the young editor soon brought the paper into
prominence, and made it a great expose of Whig
sentiment in Missouri and Illinois, and he bid fair
to make his mark as a politician and moulder of
public sentiment.

In 1832 he experienced a remarkable conversion
to the Christian faith, and became deeply im-
pressed with the duty of preaching the gospel.
Yielding to this conviction, he at once went east
and entered the Princeton Theological Seminary,
and the next year, 1833, was licensed to preach.
A few months after this he returned to St. Louis,

A NEW CENTURY 251

where he was known as a ready writer, and soon
secured a position as editor of the "St. Louis Ob-
server," the leading organ of the Presbyterians of
Missouri and Illinois. His was a remarkable ca-
reer at this time, when we consider that he was
not converted until 1832, when he was thirty years
of age, and became a minister, and an influential
religious editor the next year; thus obtaining at
a single bound, among the cultured and conser-
vative Presbyterians, that which with them was
often the work of a lifetime.

His biographer, Henry Tanner, who was with
him at the time of his death, describes Mr. Love-
joy as being "of medium height, broadly built,
muscular, of dark complexion, black eyes, with a
certain twinkle betraying his sense of the humor-
ous, and with a countenance expressing great kind-
ness and sympathy." He said further, "There
probably -had not lived in this century a man of
greater singleness of purpose in bearing witness
to the truth, more courageous in maintaining
principle in the face of passionate opposition."

When w^e read quotations from the "St. Louis
Observer"of this period we are astonished that such
mild editorials should so provoke the wrath of the
pro-slavery people. But they were evidently de-
termined to nip in the bud and crush out in its
incipiency, any agitation of the slavery question,
knowing their position was untenable, and could
not stand the light of investigation.

As a summary of his views at this time, I would
say he favored the idea of gradual emancipation
of slaves, to be followed up by colonization. Surely
this was a very mild view of the situation, when

252 A NEW NEGRO FOR

we consider that many of the Southern slave-hold-
ers themselves advocated the same measure. But
his heart was grieved at the brutal treatment many
slaves of this period received at the hands of mas-
ters and overseers. Here he thought the reform
should be thorough and immediate. "For," said
he, "it is fearfully true that many professed Chris-
tians habitually treat their slaves as though they
had no immortal souls, and it is high time such a
practice as this were abolished." But Garrison
and his associates were throwing red-hot shot into
the pro-slavery ranks. "The Liberator" and
"Emancipator" were read in St. Louis and en-
raged the advocates of slavery. In their excite-
ment they regarded all Abolitionists as one and the
same in their views, and persistently ignored Mr.
Lovejoy's plea for "cool and temperate argument,
supported by facts," and the following editorial
from his pen: "It has been with pain that we
have seen, recently, the heated and angry meet-
ings and discussions which have taken place
amongst our eastern brethren of the abolition
and colonization parties."

The excitement increased during the summer of
1845, until the slaveholders of St. Louis were
not willing to have the subject discussed, however
mildly. The articles of Mr. Lovejoy, although
written in a kind. Christian spirit, became very
offensive to them. The slaveholders were ready
to tar and feather him, as an Abolitionist, while
the rabble termed him an amalgamationist. Yet
nothing was farther from his views.

It soon became evident that the main issue be-
tween Lovejoy and his enemies was freedom of

A NEW CENTURY 253

speech and the freedom of the press. He resolved
to defend this at all hazards, and they were equally
determined to suppress it.

Seeini^ he could have no protection in St. Louis,
fiom insL.lt and threatened mob violence, Mr.
Lovejoy now determined to move his paper to the
then thriving city of Alton, Illinois, just above St.
Louis on the river. Alas! as is so often the case,
he escaped Scylla only to wreck on Charybdis,
as we shall see.

The "St. Louis Observer" of June 21, 1836,
announced the editor's intention, but before the
move could be made, some ruffians forced an en-
trance into his office and destroyed much of the
property, including some of the editor's furniture,
which was broken up and thrown into the river.
The remnant, including the press, was shipped to
Alton, where it remained on the landing during
Sunday, and was broken to pieces and thrown
into the river before Monday morning. But a
public meeting was promptly held, in which the
citizens denounced those who destroyed the press
and raised money to buy a new one. The new
press was soon received and the first number of
the "Alton Observer" was issued September 8th,
1836.

For nearly a year Lovejoy enjoyed a period of
comparative tranquility, but it was only the calm
before the storm. Many Southerners and pro-
slavery men came to the thriving young city
These could not tolerate even the mild anti-slavery
tone of the "Observer," and used their influence
with the "lewd fellows of the baser sort," who
were to be found in every western city, especially

254 A NEW NEGRO FOR

river towns. Then, too, the great dailies of St.
Louis continued to harass him, and insist that
"something must be done" to rid the country of
this pestilential fellow, who actually taught that
all men were created equal. This actually caused
a mob at Alton on Aug. 21st, 1836.

The mob first attempted to assault Mr. Love-
joy on the street about nine o'clock at night, while
returning home from the drug-store with some
medicine for his sick wife. Having surrounded
him, the cry was, "Rail him, rail him," "Tar and
feather him!" Turning to the leaders, he said in
calm tone, "I have one request to make of you,
and then you can do with me what you please.
My wife is at home sick in bed; send one of your
number to take this medicine to her, and let it be
done without alarming her." This they promised
to do, and one of the men started with the medi-
cine at once. But the calm demeanor of Lovejoy,
together with the self-sacrificing spirit in refer-
ence to his sick wife, touched the hearts of some
of them and he was permitted to go home undis-
turbed. But the same night they destroyed his
second press, type and other material; yet money
was quickly raised, partly from different states,
and partly from friends of free speech at Alton ;
and a third press was on hand September 21st,
1837. It was taken to a warehouse and stored.

The mayor, John M. Krum, offered to guard it,
and did so by placing one constable at the door
of the warehouse until about midnight. But, as
might have been expected, the officer had hardly
gone, when about a dozen ruffians broke in the
warehouse door, dragged the press to the river and

A NEW CENTURY 255

after demolishing it, threw the fragments into
that common receptacle of Lovejoy's property,
the river. About ten days after this event, Mr.
Lovejoy, with his wife and babe, were spending
some time with his wife's mother at St. Charles,
Missouri. He had preached morning and evening
on that peaceful Sabbath, and about nine o'clock
was enjoying a conversation with his friend Rev.
Mr. Campbell, when a knock was heard at the
door. On opening it, he saw a number of men
*on the portico and in the yard. The two leaders,
formerly from Virginia and Missouri, rushed into
the house and attempted to pull him out. But
with the help of his heroic wife, her mother and
sister, the two men were driven from the room.
The drunken mob again returned to the charge,
and rushing into the room, they attempted to drag
him out, and might have succeeded, had it not
been for his friend Campbell It required the ut-
most exertion of their united efforts to force the
mob from the room and clear the house. The
fiends even made a third attempt to force an en-
trance, after which it was thought best for Love-
joy to leave the house that night. Groping through
the darkness to a house of a friend, he procured
a horse and arrived at Alton the next day.

Money for a fourth press was raised, it is thought
by friends of free speech in Ohio, and was shipped
from Cincinnati to Alton, It was received by the
friends of Mr. Lovejoy, about midnight of No-
vember 6, 1837, and stored in the warehouse of
Godfrey and Oilman, the leading firm in the city.
Mr. Oilman, one of the owners of the warehouse,
called for volunteers to guard it during the night;

256 A NEW NEGRO FOR

nineteen responded, among them Mr. Lovejoy.
The mob soon began to gather, when two of their
number, Keating and West, were unwisely admit-
ted inside the building to confer with Mr. Oilman.
Of course they saw how few were on guard and
immediately demanded the surrender of the press,
threatening to blow or burn up the building in
case of refusal. Most of those in the warehouse
were anxious to fire on the mob from the window
as soon as they got in range, hoping to repulse
them at once. But Captain Long would not let
them fire until the mob was close up to the build-
ing and had fired into the door. He then ordered
one of his men to return the fire; he did so and
killed one of the mob, a man named Bishop. This
caused a cessation of hostilities for a moment, but
the mob was soon reinforced by a lot of ruffians
who had been drinking to stimulate their courage.
They now made a desperate charge, shouting "Fire
the building, and shoot every Abolitionist as he
tries to escape!" An effort was now made to fire
the building. For this purpose a long ladder was
placed on the side where there were no windows.
Soon a man mounted the ladder with a lighted
torch and attempted to set fire to the shingles,
which fortunately were damp with a heavy dew,
and slow to kindle into a flame. Captain Long
now called for volunteers to fight their way to the
ladder and throw it down. Amos B. Roff, Royal
Weller and Elijah P. Lovejoy, against the protest
of his friends, promptly attempted this fatal mis-
sion. As they stepped from the door into the
bright moonlight a perfect fusillade was fired at
them from a pile of lumber near by. Roff and

DR. I. B. SCOTT,

Editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate, New Or-
leans, La.

257

258 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Weller were both wounded, but the fire seemed to
be concentrated upon Mr. Lovejoy,who must have
been recognized in the bright moonlight. He re-
ceived five balls in his body, but had strength
enough to run back into the house and up the
stairs, crying as he went, "I am shot! I am shot!
I am dead!"

These were his last words; his friends laid him
on the floor, where he instantly expired.

The mob then seized the fourth press and de-
stroyed it. The citizens of Alton generally, ap-
peared to sympathize with the mob; for when
Mrs. Graves, the wife of the Presbyterian pastor,
in his absence, rang the bell of her church, not far
off, until she exhausted herself, not one of the
citizens appeared to defend a minister who was
about to be murdered. It seems, too, that Mr.
Lovejoy rather expected to be murdered, as was
seen by, perhaps, the last public speech he made
after being mobbed at St. Charles. At his own
request he was buried at Alton. Thus lived and
died one of the noblest and bravest defenders of
free speech and civil liberty the century has pro-
duced. Mob law was thus triumphant, but it
was a dear-bought victory for Alton. She could
destroy four presses for Mr. Lovejoy, but she
could not destroy that mighty palladium of liberty
throughout the Union. All the invective of con-
temporary journalism was hurled at Alton. Com-
merce shunned it as a plague-spot, and emigrants
avoided it as a valley of death. A store built by
Mr. Tanner at a cost of twenty-five thousand was
sold by him for less than half that amount, and
offered back to him for two thousand.

A NEW CENTURY 259

Many of her best and wealthiest citizens moved
away. Her empty warehouses crumbled into the
river, or became the haunts for bat and owl.

As a city, it seemed to be under the bane of
Him who came "to proclaim liberty to the cap-
tives," saying also, "Touch not mine anointed
and do my prophets no harm."

CHAPTER XIII.
BLACK PHALANX IN THE REBELLION.

From the time the first mutterings of Rebellion
were heard, and the war cloud no larger than a
man's hand appeared on our country's horizon,
the Negro believed, with an unswerving faith,
that slavery was the one cause of war; that God
was now ready to punish the despoiler, and let
the oppressed go free. The chorus of his favorite
song of this period was, "It must be now that the
kingdom am coming, and the year of jubilee."

Naturally he was anxious to do all in his power
to help save the country by putting down the Re-
bellion, and thereby proving himself worthy of the
coveted boon of freedom.

But alas for the suicidal policy of the Govern-
ment, he was forced to conquer race prejudice,
and the most determined opposition, before he
was permitted to face the enemy on the field of
battle. In short, they did not believe that the
Negro would fight, and seemingly demanded that
he should prove himself a soldier before facing
the enemy; reminding one of the father who told

260

A NEW CENTURY 261

his boys never to go near the water until they had
learned to swim; or the Irishman who could not
get on his boots until he had worn them awhile.
TheNew York "Times" of February 16, 1863, in
an editorial summed up the objections to enlisting
Negroes as follows: "First— That the Negroes
will not fight. Second— It is said that the whites
will not fight with them, that the prejudice against
them is so strong that our citizens will not enlist
or will quit the service if compelled to fight by
their side, and thus we shall lose two white soldiers
for one black one that we gain. Third — It is said
we shall get no Negroes— or not enough to prove
of any service. In the free states very few will
volunteer, and in the slave states we can get but
few, because the rebels will push them south-
ward as fast as we advance upon them. Fourth —
The use of Negroes will exasperate the South.
We presume it will; but so will any other scheme
we may adopt which is warlike and effective in its
character and results. We are not ready with Mr.
Vallandigham, to advocate 'immediate and uncon-
ditional peace.' The best thing we can do is to
possess ourselves in patience while the experiment
is being tried,''''

The President and Secretary of War and a large
majority of the generals in the army acted on the
theory, "This is a white man's war. and the Ne-
gro has no lot or part in it." They seemed to be
blind to the fact that Negro slavery had been the
disturbing element in the nation for about a cen-
tury and was the real casus belli, the election of
Lincoln being only the immediate occasion. More-
over, the Union army was turned into a gigantic
slave-catching institution.

262 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Even General McClellan, "whose pen was
mightier than his sword," when commander-in
chief, paused long enough in his demands on the
war department for more men (to drill and send
home on furloughs), to issue a proclamation from
"Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, July 7,
1862," in which among other things he announced
that "neither confiscation of property, political
execution of persons, territorial organization of
states, nor forcible abolition of slavery, should be
contemplated for a moment."

In a speech made in the early days of the war
at Worcester, Massachusetts, Charles Sumner said,
"I do not say carry the war into Africa, but carry
Africa into the war."

The honor of organizing the first regiment of
colored soldiers during the civil war belongs to
General David Hunter, who,while commanding the
Department of the South, gave the necessary or-
ders from Port Royal, South Carolina, in May of
1862. General Hunter was in advance of public
opinion, however, and Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War, wrote for full information con-
cerning the matter. The reply of General Hun-
ter tended to bring public opinion up to his stand-
ard; especially where he informed the Secre-
tary of War that no regiment of "fugitive slaves"
had been organized in his department. He stated
that there was, "however, a fine regiment of per-
sons whose late masters are 'fugitive rebels' — men
who everywhere fly before the appearance of the
national flag, leaving their servants behind them
to shift as best they can for themselves. So far,
indeed, are the loyal persons composing this regi-

sJ^i^ii^'"

BISHOP DANIEL A. PAYNE.

263

264 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

ment from seeking to avoid the presence of their
late owners, that they are now, one and all, work-
ing with remarkable industry to place themselves
in a position to go in full and effective pursuit of
their fugacious and traitorous proprietors." Gen-
eral Hunter explained to Mr. Stanton, that he was
acting under instructions issued by Hon. Simon
Cameron, late Secretary of War, to his predeces-
sor General Thomas W. Sherman, who turned
them over to him for his instruction and guidance.
Said instruction authorized him "to employ all
loyal persons offering their services in defense of
the Union, and the suppression of this Rebellion."

He continues: "The loyal slaves everywhere
remaining on their plantations to welcome us, aid
us, and supply us with food, labor and infor-
mation," filled this requirement exactly, and as they
were the only men who were loyal, he had organized
them into a regiment and detailed officers to drill
them. He closed his letter by stating, "The ex-
periment of arming the blacks, so far as I have
made it, has been a complete and even marvelous
success. They are sober, docile, attentive and
enthusiastic; displaying great natural capacities
for acquiring the duties of the soldier. They are
eager, beyond all things, to take the field and be
led into action; and it is the unanimous opinion
of the officers who have had charge of them that
in the peculiarities of this climate and country
they will prove invaluable auxiliaries."

With General B. F. Butler, the idea of using
Negroes as soldiers seems to have been a gradual
growth in grace, but he was at last soundly con-
verted. While in Maryland he offered to co-operate

A NEW CENTURY 265

with Governor Hicks in suppressing any insurrec-
tion of the slaves against the laws of the state.
In New Orleans he permitted a rebel slaveholder
to enter his camp, and seize a mulatto, who was
nearly white, after he had enlisted and donned
the Federal uniform. Before this, General Butler
had called the slaves who came into his lines,"con-
traband of war" and set them to work, thus rec-
ognizing property in man, and rating Negroes
with mules, muskets or other munitions of war.
But he seemed to think more favorably of free
Negroes, and finding the idea growing popular at
the North, he on the twenty-second of August,
1862, issued an appeal to the free men of color
in New Orleans, to volunteer their services as
soldiers in defense of the Union, which met with
a hearty response. From this time on he was a
strong advocate of employing Negro soldiers, and
afterwards ably championed their cause on the
floor of Congress.

General John Charles Fremont, having been ap-
pointed to the command of the Western Depart-
ment with his headquarters at St. Louis, gave a
new claim to his title of "pathfinder" by finding
at once a way of success for the Union army, and
freedom for the slave, by the aggressive action of
an emancipation proclamation. This was issued
August thirty-first, 1861. It proclaimed that "the
property, real and personal, of all persons in the
State of Missouri who shall take up arms against
the United States, or shall be directly proven to
have taken active part with their enemies in the
field, is declared to be confiscated to the public
use, and slaves, if any they have, are hereby de-

266 A NEW NEGRO FOR

clared free men." You will observe that he did
not refer to Negroes as personal property or "con-
traband of war," but free men.

President Lincoln regarded this proclamation
as premature, and annulled it; still it tended to
pave the way for his great Emancipation Procla-
mation.

After the fall of Fort Donelson, February six-
teenth, 1862, General Grant had backbone
enough to send out the following order, which
was the first of the kind issued during the war, and
was not only in accord with the highest military
wisdom, but consonant with the dictates of hu-
manity and common sense.

"Headquarters, District of West Tenn.
Fort Donelson, Feby. 26, 1862.

"I. General Order No. 3, series 1861, from
Headquarters Department of Missouri, is still in
force and must be observed. The necessity of its
strict enforcement is made apparent by the nu-
merous applications from citizens for permission to
pass through the camps to look for fugitive slaves.
In no case whatever will permission be granted to
citizens for this purpose.

"H. All slaves at Fort Donelson at the time of
its capture and all slaves within the line of military
occupation that have been used by the enemy in
building fortifications, or in any manner hostile to
the Government, will be employed by the quarter-
master's department for the benefit of the Govern-
ment, and will under no circumstances be per-
mitted to return to their master.

"HI. It is made the duty of all officers of this

A NEW CENTURY 267

command to see that all slaves above indicated are
promptly delivered to the chief quartermaster of
the district."

"By order of Brigadier General U. S. Grant.
"John A. Rawlins, A. A. G."

The "silent-man-on-horseback" did not often
speak, but when he did, it was to the point and
purpose.

The honor belongs to Governor Sprague of
Rhode Island for making the first official call for
Negro troops at the North. This appeal to the
colored citizens of that state was issued August
fourth, 1862. But the palm for actually raising
the first colored regiment was won by one of the
youngest of the sisterhood of states, even bleeding
Kansas. This regiment was recruited in the sum-
mer and fall of 1862. Was organized at Fort
Scott by Colonel James M. Williams January
fourth, 1863, and was ready to take the field the
following May. It is thought the reason Kansas
led the Northern States in raising colored troops,
was the fact that she had not yet accomplished the
days of her moutning for the martyrdom of John
Brown.

Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, having ob-
tained authority from Secretary Stanton to raise
a number of colored regiments, hurried home
from Washington and sent out his first order Feb-
ruary ninth, 1863. But owing to past disappoint-
ment, having been spurned and insulted when
they were eager to preserve their country, the re-
sponse of the "persons of African descent" was not
hearty. Moreover, Massachusetts had but a small

268 A NEW NEGRO FOR

colored population. In this emergency the Gov-
ernor sought help from the adjoining state. He
dispatched Mayor G. L. Stearns to lay the case
before the great leader and champion of his race,
Frederick Douglass, then living and publishing
his monthly at Rochester, New York.

As a result of the visit Mr. Douglass pub-
lished a stirring appeal in the March number of
his monthly of that year. This appeal had the
desired effect; large numbers (including two of
Douglass' sons) went over into Massachusetts and
helped them fill up the ranks. When ready to
take the field they intended marching through
New York City, but the chief of police notified
Governor Andrew that he would be unable to pro-
tect the colored troops from being mobbed by the
foreign ruffians, and rebel sympathizers who had
already tasted blood by mobbing inoffensive Ne-
groes, looting and burning a colored orphan's
home.

Tammany is usually represented by a tiger,
but this time a dog in the manger would have
been more appropriate. Not wishing to compli-
cate matters, or spill unnecessary blood, they
sailed around New York to meet the other rebels
in the South.

But a change of sentiment rapidly took place and
the colored troops scored a victory, even against
the mobocracy of the metropolis. When the
Twentieth Regiment Colored U. S. Troops was
ready to leave its rendezvous on Ricker's Island
for service, the members of the Union League
Club and other friends proposed to give it a recep-
tion in New York City, but some of the committee

A NEW CENTURY 269

did not wish to expose the soldiers to mob vio^
lence and were timid, to say the least. It was de^
cided to inform the commander of the regiment,
Colonel Bartram, of their apprehensions, and ask
him if he thought he could get through the city.
To which the brave commander replied: "Give
me room to land my regiment, and if it cannot
march through New York, it is not fit to go into
the field." This settled the matter. The police
cleared a space for it to land at Thirty-sixth
Street; and with fixed bayonets, loaded muskets,
martial music and company front, they marched
through the most aristocratic streets of the city.
Their manly appearance and miHtary bearing pro-
duced the wildest enthusiasm and cheering among
the very cowardly ruffians who had wreaked their
vengeance on an orphan's home, a short time since.
The march became a triumphal procession, a per-
fect ovation, as a hundred thousand loyal citizens,
including some of the most wealthy and refined
ladies and gentlemen, showed their approval by
encouraging plaudits, enthusiastic cheering, wav-
ing handkerchiefs and showering them with bou-

^But if Frederick Douglass could by his match-
less eloquence inspire his people to go to war, a
worthy contemporary, Aunty Sojourner Truth
could by means of a song which she composed
keep up the inspiration after they reached the front
She composed this song for "her boys," the colored
regiment from Battle Creek, Michigan, but it soon
became a favorite with all the colored soldiers
An old veteran told the writer he once heard a black
regiment sing it just before a battle and they made

270 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the welkin ring, and inspired all who heard it.
Imagine a thousand Negro soldiers singing the
following lines to the tune of "John Brown's
Body."

THE VALIANT SOLDIERS.

We are the valiant soldiers who've 'listed for the war;
We are fighting for the Union, we are fighting for the law,
V/e can shoot a rebel farther than a white man ever saw,
As we go marching on.

Chorus. —

Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah, as we go marching on.

Look there above the center, where the flag is waving bright;
We are going out of slavery, we are bound for freedom's light,
We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight,
As we go marching on. — Chq.

We are done with hoeing cotton, we are done with hoeing corn;
We are colored Yankee soldiers, as sure as you are born;
WhenMassa hears us shouting, he will think 'tis Gabriel's horn.
As we go marching on. — Cho.

They will have to pay us wages, the wages of their sin;

They will have to bow their foreheads to their colored kith and

kin;
They will have to give us houseroom, or the roof will tumble in,
As we go marching on. — Cho.

We hear the proclamation, massa, hush it as you will;
The birds will sing it to us, hopping on the cotton hill;
The possum up the gum tree couldn't keep it still.
As he went climbing on. — Cho.

Father Abraham has spoken, and the message has been sent;
The prison doors have opened and out the prisoners went
To join the sable army of African descent,
As we go marching on. — Cho.

A NEW CENTURY 271

But how did they behave themselves under fire,
what did they do in battle? They did what
would be naturally expected, when it is remem-
bered that behind them were chains and slavery;
in their immediate presence the rebel procla-
mation of "no quarter for Negroes," while before
them was the bright star of freedom beckoning
them on to a happier and independent life.

"They fought like brave men" nobly well;

"They piled the ground with" rebels slain;
"They conquered, but" a thousand fell,
"Bleeding in every vein."

Truly does George W. Williams, himself a
colored veteran, say in his "History of the Negro
Troops in the Rebellion," "The part enacted by
the Negro troops in the war of the Rebellion is the
romance of North American History." But it
may be objected that /le is a partial witness. True,
but he was t/iere^ and a man who was present
certainly knows more about it than another who
was afraid to go. We will presently introduce
witnesses who were opposed to the use of the
Negro as a soldier.

Even President Lincoln remarked to Dr. Patten
of Chicago, when urged to press the Negro into
service, "If we were to arm them I fear that in a
few weeks the arms would be in the hands of the
rebels." So it was with many misgivings they
were at last permitted to face the enemy. Early
in their military career they were given an oppor-
tunity to prove their valor by a desperate encoun-
ter at Fort Wagner, Port Hudson, and the mine
explosion at Petersburg; still each time they met
the enemy like heroes and veterans, and by their

2^2 A NEW NEGRO FOR

indomitable courage and enthusiasm conquered
the prejudice of the Union men who at first op-
posed their enlistment.

At Fort Wagner near Charleston the wealthy and
cultured young Colonel R. G. Shaw commanded
the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts colored regiment.
To get to this battle they had made a forced march
of a day and night without food or rest; over
shifting sands and under a broiling sun, during the
day, and through darkness and a drenching rain
at night. They reached General Strong's head-
quarters at six o'clock on the memorable morning
just as they were forming the line of battle, and
without stopping for rest or food, they proudly
took their place at the head of the assaulting
column.

General Strong and Colonel Shaw each made
burning patriotic speeches inspiring their men to
be eager for deeds of valor or a glorious death.
After about half an hour General Strong gave the
order to charge, and onward swept the troops led
by the gallant Negro regiment, nor were they
checked by the galling fire from the ramparts of
Fort Wagner, or the destructive cross-fire which
raked them from Cummings Point and Sumter.
Rushing across the ditch with irresistible force, the
regiment reached the parapet and there planted
their flag. But at this critical moment the gallant
General Strong was mortally wounded, "and here,"
in the language of Williams, "the brave, beautiful
and heroic Colonel Shaw was saluted by death
and kissed by immortality." But his regiment in
this charge through the very jaws of death had
actually gained the inside of the fort, and had

A NEW CENTURY 273

they been strongly supported Wagner would un-
doubtedly have been taken.

Colonel Shaw's regiment numbered about six
hundred enlisted men and twenty officers which
helped in this battle. Of the privates, thirty-one
were killed, one hundred and thirty-five wounded,
and ninety-two missing. Of the twenty-two
officers three were killed and eleven wounded.
Thus we find that more than half the officers were
killed or wounded, and nearly half of the privates
were either killed, wounded or missing. Although
the assault on Wagner was a military failure, for
in war nothing succeeds but success, still it effec-
tually demonstrated that the Negro troops were
among the bravest of the brave, and it tended to
silence the scoffing contempt and ridicule of the
stay-at-home Negro-doubters.

Delighted with their gallant conduct. General
Gillmore presented medals to the following soldiers
of the glorious Fifty-fourth colored regiment: Ser-
geants Robert J. Simmons and William H. Carney;
Corporal Henry F. Peal and Private George Wil-
son. In this charge John Wall, the Negro color
bearer, was killed, but WilHam H. Carney seized
the standard and bore it to the parapet, but after
receiving several severe wounds, one of which
mangled his arm, he brought the tattered banner
to the- rear in his clenched teeth, stained with his
own blood, and shouted to his comrades, "Boys,
it never teched the ground!"

When a flag of truce was sent to the enemy to
claim Colonel Shaw's body, a rebel officer replied,
"We buried him with his niggers '^ They thought
thus to heap odium on this dead hero, but the

274 ^ ^^EJV NEGRO FOR

effort was a failure. At the request of his parents,
the body was not disturbed, but the gallant young
officer and his black comrades were permitted to
sleep on in a common grave. Thus united in life,
in death they were not separated.

"'They buried him with his niggers!'

Together they fought and died;
There was room for them all where they laid him,

(The grave was deep and wide)
For his beauty and youth and valor,

Their patience and love and pain;
And at the last day together

They shall all be found again.

*They buried him with his niggers!'

Earth holds no prouder grave;
There is not a mausoleum

In the world beyond the wave
That a nobler tale has hallowed

Or a purer glory crowned,
Than the nameless trench where they buried

The brave so faithful found.

•They buried him with his niggers!"

A wide grave should it be;
They buried more in that shallow trench

Than human eye could see.
Ay, all the shams and sorrows

Of more than a hundred years
Lie under the weight of that Southern soil,

Despite those cruel sneers,

*They buried him with his niggers!'

But the glorious souls set free
Are leading the van of the army

That fights for liberty,
Brothers in death, in glory

The same palm branches bear,
And the crown is as bright ovei the sable brows

As over the golden hair."

A NEW CENTURY 275

The Union army was anxious to capture Port
Hudson, that the "Mississippi might go unvexed
to the sea."

Two of the colored companies or "Corps d'
Afrique," which had been organized by invitation
of General Butler at New Orleans, the First and
Third, took part in this their first engagement.
They numbered one thousand and eighty men, and
were commanded respectively by Colonel C. J.
Bassett, and Colonel Henry Finnegas. Though
comparatively raw recruits, they appeared eager for
the command to charge for the enemy's guns on the
bluff. At the word they moved off in quick time,
which was soon changed into double quick. The
rebels in the fort reserved their fire until the charg-
ing column was within four hundred yards, then
instantly evey gun discharged a fusillade of death-
dealing missiles. In the midst of fearful slaughter
the shattered columns wheeled to the rear in good
order, reformed and again charged the enemy, but
the unceasing fire of grape, canister, minie-ball
and sixty-two pound shot, were to much for in-
fantry in the open field with no chance to return
the fire. Moreover, there was a deep bayou to cross
and an almost perpendicular bluff to scale before
the guns of the fort could be reached.

Seeing it was impossible to take the fort from
these natural obstructions, Colonel Nelson dis-
patched an aide to General William Dwight, then
in command, explaining the difficulty. To which
the General sternly replied, "Tell Colonel Nelson
I shall consider that he has accomplished nothing
unless he takes those guns." So they were again
sent into the jaws of death. Six times did these

2y(y A NEW NEGRO FOR

colored troops charge desperately into this veri-
table slaughter pen, before the inexorable General
saw it was a useless waste of the lives of his brave
men, so ordered them back.

One of the most gallant men killed that day was
Captain Andre Cailloux of Company E, First
Regiment Native Guards. Though phenomenally
black, he was a gentleman of broad culture, com-
manding presence, considerable wealth, and a
born leader of men. While urging his soldiers
on, first in English, then in French, his left arm
was mangled, but he faltered not. Leading his
company to the edge of that fatal bayou, a shell
struck him, and he fell dead with his face to the
enemy, like the hero that he was.

When the first regiment was ready to leave
New Orleans, the colonel, who for some cause was
not going, deliverd its colors with these words:
"Color guard, protect, defend, die for, but do not
surrender these flags." To which Anselmas Plan-
ciancois, the color sergeant, on receiving them
nobly replied, "Colonel, I will bring back these
colors in honor, or report to God the reason why."
Poor Anselmas was gallantly bearing his colors in
front of the regiment, near the enemy's works,
when a shell cut away part of the beautiful banner,
together with part of the sergeant's head, and as he
embraced it in death it became baptized in his
blood and brains. Doubtless he reported to the
Great Commander-in-chief of us all, "the reason
why."

The following is an extract from a letter written
by a sable warrior, to a friend in Chicago, describ-
ing the deeds of heroism performed by his com-

A NEW CENTURY 277

pany, in the tragedy of the crater at Petersburg:
"The rebels poured a deadly fire upon us,
wounding Corporal Maxwell severely, and he was
compelled to let the colors fall. Corporal Stevens
then seized the colors and bore them up to the
top of the works. He was quickly cut down.
Corporal Bailey seized the flag and was killed in-
stantly. Thomas Barrett, a colored private,
seized the colors and bore them up to the top of
the fort again. He quickly fell dead. Captain
Brockay then seized the flag and was mortally
wounded and obliged to let the colors fall. Col.
John A. Bross of Chicago, attired in his full uni-
form, with the evident intention of inspiring his
men, then seized the flag, rushed upon the top,
of the fort, planted it upon the parapet, drew his
sword, took' his hat in his hand, and cried:
*Rally, my brave boys, rally!' The boys did in-
stantly rally up to him; but he quickly fell in
death."

We will not harrow the feelings of the reader
by portraying all the details of the heart-rending
Fort Pillow massacre. Suffice it to say that the
garrison included two hundred and ninety-five men
of the 13th Tennessee Union Cavalry, commanded
by Major W. F. Bradford, and two hundred and
sixty-two colored troops of the 6th U. S. Heavy Ar-
tillery, making five hundred and fifty-seven all un-
der the command of Major L. F. Booth, of the ar-
tillery. On April twelfth, 1 864, a strong rebel force,
• under the command of Major-General N. B. Forest
and General Chalmers, appeared before the fort
and demanded its surrender, which being refused,
they uttered the rebel yell of "No quarter!" and

278 A NEW NEGRO FOR

charged on the fort. After a desperate resistance
in which Major Booth, the commanding officer,
was killed, the weak garrison overpowered and
the fort taken by assault; then began an indis-
criminate massacre of men, women and children,
white and black, which has no equal in civilized
warfare. As fast as the Negroes surrendered they
were shot down. The wounded were dragged
into houses, and after the doors had been barri-
caded the torch was applied and the houses and
contents burned; others were nailed to the doors
of burning houses, while a number were burned
alive. At least three fourths of the entire force
were annihilated, most of them after the fort was
taken. But never was a braver defense made.
What Thermopylae was to the Greco-Persian war;
what the Alamo was to the Mexican war, that
Fort Pillow was to the Rebellion. Right nobly
did the black troops avenge this massacre of their
comrades, on many hard-fought battle fields after
this, when the cruel rebel yell of "No quarter!"
was answered by their battle cry, "Remember Fort
Pillow!"

Volumes would be required to chronicle the
daring deeds of valor and patriotism performed
by these black heroes in the /oitr hundred and
forty-nine battles in which they participated. We
can only sketch a few more instances of their
bravery. At Bermunda Hundred, they captured
seven pieces of artillery and six redoubts with their
connecting rifle pits. At Ship Island, they suc-
cessfully repulsed rebel veterans twice their num-
ber. At Millikin's Bend, the rebels came on like
madmen, shouting, "No quarter!" only to be

A NEjy CENTURY 279

soundly whipped and driven back by the Negro
troops, many of whom were raw recruits in their
first action. The rebels were glad to get for them-
selves what they denied the Negro.

At Fort Powhatan, the ex-slaves repulsed the
very flower of Virginia chivalry, led on by the
valorous Fitz Hugh Lee. The fight lasted five
hours, during which the Virginia masters made
three desperate charges, only to be mowed down
like grass by the enemy from behind their fortifi-
cations. Chivalry at last retired disgusted, his
ranks fearfully depleted, and the chattel havmg
gained the day.

Fort Harrison, five miles from Richmond, was
the key to the rebel position on the north of the
James. General Butler sent his Negro troops
under the invincible Birney to take this fort at
point of bayonet. The Confederate garrison cried
out tauntingly, "Come on, darkies, we want your
muskets." The darkies did come on in the face
of a galHng fire, shouting, "Remember Fort Pil-
low!" The cavaliers did not get the guns, but
received their contents, which checked the flight
of many, but the others ran for four miles, and
the fort was taken by the Negroes.

Of this exploit General Butler said on the floor
of Congress: "It became my painful duty,sir, to
follow in the track charging column, and there,
in a space not wider than the clerk's desk, and
three hundred yards long, lay the dead bodies of
five hundred and fifty-three of my colored com-
rades, slain in the defense of their country, who
laid down their lives to uphold its flag and its
honor as a willing sacrifice; and as I rode along

28o A NEW NEGRO FOR

among them, guiding my horse this way and that
way, lest he should profane with his hoofs what
seemed to me the sacred dead, and as I looked on
their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun as
if in mute appeal against the wrongs of the coun-
try for which they had given their lives, and whose
flag had only been to them a flag of stripes on
which no star of glory had ever shone for them —
feeling I had wronged them in the past, and be-
lieving what was the future of my country to
them — among my dead comrades there I swore to
myself a solemn oath: 'May my right hand for-
get its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof
of my mouth if I ever fail to defend the rights of
those men who have given their blood for me and
my country this day, and for their race forever;'
and God helping me, I will keep that oath."

A Negro soldier having been clad in rags all his
life, the very Federal garb he wore tended to inspire
him with self-respect and patriotism. He was on
picket duty in a Virginia town, when a Southern
sympathizer came along and shoved him off the
sidewalk. At this the soldier cried out," White man,
halt," but no attention was paid to him. Whereupon
he brought his musket to a ready, with an ominous
click of the trigger, and loudly shouted: "White
man, halt!" Hearing ^//^^/ in his tone, the man
stopped, and turning around found himself looking
down a gun barrel. His next order was, "White
man, come here;" this was obeyed, when the sol-
dier remarked, "Dis nigger is of no particular ac-
count, but you must 'spect dis uniform; white
man go on."

They fully comprehended the issues, as when

A NEW CENTURY 281

a former slave, standing guard and seeing his late
master brought in as a prisoner, thus greeted him:
'^Ah, master, bottom rail on the top this time."

There were 178,975 colored volunteers, of
whom 141,252 were from the slave states and 37,-
723 from the free states. Of this large number
36,847 were killed, wounded or missing. As we
have stated, they participated in 449 battles, and
filled with distinction almost every military depart-
ment of the Federal army. This was the largest
army of civilized Negroes of any war in the
world's history, ancient or modern. Christian or
pagan.

Massachusetts was the first state to commission
Negro officers; she had ten; Kansas three; and
the two regiments of Corps d' Afrique from New
Orleans had black officers.

It is believed there were at least seventy-five
colored men who bore commissions for a short
time in the Department of the Gulf. There were
also quite a number of colored surgeons and chap-
lains who were given commissions.

The Negro historian, Williams, in his "Honor
Roll," gives a list of ten colored regiments which
were commanded by General Butler, and presented
with banners inscribed with the names of the places
where they won their laurels. He also has on
his "Roll " the names of sixty-seven heroes. Of
this number ten were publicly commended by the
General, twenty-four received medals for gallantry,
thirty were promoted for their deeds of valor,
while three others were doubly honored with
medals and promotion.

Secretary of War Stanton says of colored

282 A NEW NEGRO FOR

troops at Petersburg: "The hardest fighting was
done by the black troops. The forts they stormed
were the worst of all. General Smith said they
cannot be excelled as soldiers."

Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas wrote Sena-
tor Henry Wilson concerning Negro troops, "Ex-
perience proves that they manage heavy guns very
well. Their fighting qualities have been fully
tested a number of times, and I am yet to hear of
the first case where they did not fully stand up to
their work. At Millikin's Bend, where I had three
incomplete regiments, one without arms until the
day previous to the attack, greatly superior num-
bers of the rebels charged furiously up to the very
breastworks. The Negroes met the enemy on the
ramparts, where both sides freely used the bayonet,
and the rebels were defeated with heavy loss."

General Thomas Morgan, speaking of the cour-
age of the Negro troops in the battle of Nashville,
said: "Those who fell nearest the enemy's works
were colored." Gen. James Blount says of the
First Colored Regiment at Henry Springs, Arkan-
sas: "The Negroes were too much for the enemy,
and let me here say that I never saw such fighting
as was done by that Negro regiment. Too much
praise cannot be awarded them for their gallantry.
The question that the Negroes will fight is settled;
besides, they make better soldiers in every respect
than any troops I have ever had under my com-
mand."

General Butler, in an address to the army of the
James before Richmond, October, 1864, made the
following statement concerning the campaign just
ended: "In the charge of the enemy's works by

A NEW CENTURY 283

the colored division of the Eighteenth Corps at
Spring Hill New Market, better men were never
better led, better officers never led better men. This
war is ended when a musket is in the hands of
every able-bodied Negro who wishes to use one."

Thus it is not an exaggeration to say that colored
troops turned the tide of war against slavery and
the Rebellion, in favor of freedom and the Union.

In proportion to numbers, they were equally
gallant and useful on the high seas, and in the
navy. During the month of June, 1861, the
schooner "S.J. Waring," bound from New York to
South America, was captured by the privateer "Jeff
Davis." A prize crew consisting of a captain, mate
and four seamen were put on board and the vessel
headed for Charleston. Three of the original
crew were retained on board; a Yankee, who was
put iu chains, a German as steersman and a black
man named Wm. Tillman, the steward and cook
of the schooner, who was put to work at his busi-
ness, and informed that he now belonged to the
Confederacy and would be sold on arriving at
Charleston. But the Negro was as brave as a lion,
and resolved that the ship should never reach
Charleston. With him to resolve was to act.
After putting the captain out of the way, he was
master of the cabin. Ascending the deck, he made
way with the mate. Seizing the mate's revolver,
he drove the crew below deck, and proclaimed
himself master of the ship. He then ordered the
release of the Yankee, whom he armed, and put
the enemy in irons.

With the stars and stripes flying, they turned
"The Waring" towards New York, A storm

284 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

arose, more men were needed to work the ship.
Tillman ordered the rebels to be released and
brought on deck. They were put to work, but in-
formed that the least disobedience meant death.
Five days after this "The Waring" arrived in the
port of New York under the command of William
Tillman, the Negro patriot.

The New York "Tribune" said of this event: —
"To this colored man was the nation indebted for
the first vindication of its honor on the sea."

The Federal government awarded Tillman six
thousand dollars prize money for the capture of
the brig.

On the morning of May 13, 1862, the rebel
gunboat "Planter" was captured by her colored
crew, while lying in the port of Charleston, and
delivered to the Federal squadron then blockad-
ing that port. Following is the dispatch from
Commodore Dupont to the Secretary of War, an-
nouncing the fact:

"U. S. Steamship, Augusta, off Charleston,
May 13, 1862.

"Sir: — I have the honor to inform you that the
rebel armed gunboat 'Planter' was brought out to
us this morning from Charleston by eight 'contra-
bands,' and delivered up to the squadron. Five
colored women and three children are also on
board. She was the armed dispatch and transpor-
tation steamer attached to the engineer depart-
ment at Charleston, under General Ripley. At
four in the morning, in the absence of the captain,
who was on shore, she left her wharf close to the
government office and headquarters, with the

A NEW CENTURY 285

Palmetto and Confederate flags flying, and passed
the successive forts, saluting as usual, by blowing
the steam whistle. After getting beyond the range
of the last gun, they hauled down the rebel flags
and hoisted a white one. *The Onward,' the
inside ship of the blockading squadron, was about
to fire, when her commander discovered the white
flag. The armament of the steamer is a thirty-
two pounder on a pivot, and a fine twenty-four
pound howitzer. She has, besides, on her deck,
four other guns, one a seven inch rifle, which
were to be taken on the following morning to a
new fort. One of the four guns belonged to Fort
Sumter and had been struck in the rebel attack
on the muzzle.

"Robert Small, the intelligent slave, and pilot of
the boat, who performed this bold feat so skill-
fully, is a superior man to any who have come
into our lines, intelligent as many of them have
been. His information has been interesting, and
portions of it of the utmost importance. The
steamer is quite a valuable acquisition to the
squadron, by her good machinery and light draught.
The bringing out of this steamer would have done
credit to any one. If in view of the Government,
the vessel will be considered a prize, 1 respectfully
submit to the Department the claims of the man
Small, and his associates.

"Very Respectfully, S. F. Dupont, Flag Officer
Commanding."

It is gratifying to be able to state that the
"Planter" was received as a prize and Robert
Small appointed captain.*^ In this position he

286 A NEW NEGRO FOR

showed great courage and ability. The "Planter"
was ordered to Charleston just after that city was
taken and there Captain Small received a perfect
ovation.

We cannot shut our eyes to the verdict of his-
tory, nor to the glamour of romance that sur-
rounds many of our colored brethren, and are
compelled to admit that whether on land or sea,
'n army or navy, there is but one verdict, "7 he
Colored Troops Fought Nobly "

HON. R. L. SMITH,

Member of Texas Legislature and Founder of the Farmer's

Improvement Society, an organization doing great

good among the farmers of Texas.

287

CHAPTER XIV.

EXODUS, AND SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH
. AND WEST.

The great hegira of the blacks from the South,
or "the Negro Exodus," as it was called, began
about February ist, 1879. The Negroes had all
heard of Kansas, made memorable by the strug-
gles, on their behalf, of Jim Lane and John Brown,
and naturally when they decided to leave the
South they turned their eyes toward that "Pronx-
ised Land."

But what caused them to leave the South in
such large numbers .'' There were two answers to
this question, but both of them could not be true.
Said a Southern Democrat to a correspondent of
the "Atlantic Monthly" of that period: "1 tell you,
it's all owing to the radical politicians at the
North; they've had their emissaries down here, and
deluded the niggers into a very fever of emigration
with the purpose of reducing our basis of repre-
sentation in Congress and increasing that of the
Northern states."

It has been shown repeatedly that nothing could
have been more foreign to the truth than the state-

288

A NEW CENTURY 289

ment just uttered; the movement had no political
significance except in the fact that the Negro
was denied a free ballot and fair count in the
South, and sought a country where he could have
both, with "none to molest or make him afraid."

Not one of the states in which they settled,
through the officials, invited them; but to their
credit be it said, they received them kindly when
they arrived. This was especially true of the
Prohibition Governor of Kansas, John P. St. John.

Not one dollar of public funds soever, national,
state or municipal, was used in buying land or
furnishing supplies for these poverty-stricken black
imigrants, and the only known contribution from
any man engaged in politics, was one hundred dol-
lars from Vice-President Wheeler. Congress
could, without the slightest qualms of conscience,
vote away millions of acres of the richest lands to
railroad monopolies. The government could ap-
propriate millions of acres of land and millions of
dollars in money to support the wild Indians,
many of them drinking, gambling, and living a
life of idleness, vagrancy, and crime. It could
wring from the people millions for the benefit of
railroad magnates, factory kings, the coffee and
the sugar trust, when every pound of Southern
sugar was made by the brawn and sweat of the
poor negro, but it could not give one dollar for
the benefit of the colored man, who had spent
two and one-half centuries in unpaid toil to en-
rich the South, from which he is now forced to flee
empty-handed and almost naked. Verily consis-
tency is a jewel.

All the action taken by Congress was the adop-

290 A NEW NEGRO FOR

tion of a resolution offered by U. S. Senator D.
W. Voorhees of Indiana, providing for an investi-
gation of the causes of the migration of the colored
people from the Southern to the Northern states.
Thus, with its usual recklessness, congress appro-
priated thousands of dollars to find out what was
already known to every intelligent person, and al-
most every schoolboy in the country, that the
Negroes were leaving the South because of syste-
matic robbery, and political cruelties. Thousands
of dollars to ascertain the cause of the poor Ne-
groes' distress, but not one cent to relieve it.

An intelligent Negro told the same correspondent
for the "Atlantic Monthly," who interviewed the
Bourbon democrat: "We've been working hard for
fourteen long, dreary years, and we ain't any bet-
ter off than when we commenced." The same
statement was substantially made by many of
the dusky emigrants. "Now, Uncle Joe, what did
you come for?" "Oh law! Missus, I f oilers my
two boys an' the ole woman, an' then 'pears like
I wants a taste of votin' afore I dies, an' de ole
man doan' want no swamps to wade in afore he
votes, kase he must be Republican, ye see."

"Well, old Aunty, tell us what you think of leav-
ing your old home." "I doan' have no home nohow,
if they shoots my ole man an' the boys an' give
me no money for de washin'."

A sprightly woman of twenty-five frankly stated:

"I hadn't much real trouble yet, like some of
my neighbors, who lost everything. We had a lot
an' a little house, an' some stock on the place.
We sold all out kase we didn't dare stay when
votin' time came again. Some neighbors bet-

A NEW CENTURY 291

ter off than we, had been all broken up by a
pack of *night-riders' — all in white, who scared
everybody to death, run the men to the swamps
before elections, run the stock off, an' set fire to
their places. A poor woman might as well be killed
and done with it." Though not voters, and con-
sequently free from personal assaults, the women
suffered as much from the general terrorism that
prevailed in certain districts, especially in Missis-
sippi and Louisiana, as the men. "We might as
well starve or freeze to death in Kansas," they say,
"as to be shot-gunned here."

There is certainly just cause for complaint of
systematic extortion and robbery, through the in-
iquitous "Plantation Credit System." The Negroes'
necessities have developed at the cross-roads or
steam-boat landings an offensive class called mer-
chants by courtesy, who are frequently Jews and
live by extortion. In any Northern or Western
community they would be called sharks, harpies,
or vampires, and would not be tolerated more
than one season. But many stores claiming to
do a legitimate credit business, are owned in whole
or in part by the planters, and were almost as
exorbitant. Every store-keeper has a cash and
credit price, and the latter was usually double
the former.

Besides, it is claimed on good authority, that
in Mississippi five years prior to the Exodus, not
one white man was convicted and punished for an
offense against a colored man, or made to pay a
debt due a colored man; while in Texas, Ala-
bama and Georgia, laws were passed under which
freedmen were arrested for debts, and their labor,

292 A NEW NEGRO FOR

(which is virtually themselves) sold at auction.
The usual bid was twenty-five cents per day, with
rainy days and Sundays deducted and board ex-
acted for them. The following items were
taken from a planter's contract, and store-keeper's
receipted bill, brought with them to Kansas: "Rent
of land for one season, five and ten dollars per
acre" (more than its assessed valuation, and more
than it would bring at public sale). "Hire of mule
to cultivate crops, thirty dollars" (the mule was
sold at the end of the season for twenty-five dol-
lars). "Mess pork thirty-five dollars per barrel.
Corn-meal, nine dollars per barrel. Bacon sides
and shoulders, twenty cents per pound. Common
brown sugar, twelve and one-half cents per pound.
Rice, twelve and one-half cents per pound. Mo-
lasses, common black strap, one dollar and twenty-
five cents per gallon. Tobacco (ordinary "dogleg"),
one dollar and fifty cents per pound. Cotton drill-
ing, forty cents per yard. Domestic prints, fif-
teen and sixteen cents per yard."

By a strange coincidence, the man who sold these
particular goods was one of a delegation of planters
who came from the South to Kansas to persuade
some of the best of the Negroes to return. When
confronted with this bill, he acknowledged that it
was genuine, and in his own hand-writing. It is
unnecessary to state that he got no Negroes to re-
turn with him.

The poor unsuspecting Negro, unable to read
or calculate, and paying such prices as we have
quoted, generally found himself from twenty-five
to two hundred dollars in debt at the end of each
year. This, of course, necessitated another en-

A NEW CENTURY 293

gagement for the next year, in order to pay that
debt, then another engagement, until the poor
Negro was a veritable slave, for it was impossible
to get out of debt. But political persecution was
as patent a factor in causing the Exodus, as sys-
tematic robbery.

When a prominent pastor of St. Louis said a
few years ago at a National Baptist Anniversary:
"In the South the whites are going to rule, by
fair means if they can, but they are going to rule,"
he expressed the sentiment of the Solid South,
and they were absolutely unscrupulous in their
methods, especially after they became thoroughly
exasperated with the carpet-baggers, and Negro
rule in the South, during the period of reconstruc-
tion.

Many of the Negroes were terrorized by "night-
riders," "Kuklux," or "bull-dozers," as they were
variously called, and driven to the swamps just
before elections. Numbers were murdered out-
right, as the following letter from General. P. H.
Sheridan, written from New Orleans, January
loth, 1875, shows:

"Since the year 1866, nearly thirty-five hundred
persons, a great majority of which were colored
men, have been killed and wounded in this state.
In 1868 the official record shows that eighteen
hundred and eighty-four were killed and wounded.
From 1868 to the present time no official investi-
gation had been made and the civic authorities, in
all but a few cases, have been unable to arrest,
convict or punish the perpetrators; consequently
there are no correct records to be consulted for
information. There is ample evidence, however,

294 A NEW NEGRO FOR

to show that more than twelve hundred persons
have been killed and wounded during this time,
on account of their political sentiments. Fright-
ful massacres have occurred in the parishes of Bas-
sier, Caddo, Catahoula, Saint Bernard, Grant, and
Orleans. . . . Human life in this state is
held so cheaply that when men are killed on ac-
count of political opinions the murderers are
regarded rather as heroes than as criminals in the
localities where they reside."

In the year 1867-8, a reign of terror prevailed
in Louisiana. A massacre of Negroes began in St.
Landry parish Sept. 28, 1868, lasting from three
to six days, and resulting in the killing of from
three to four hundred men. "Thirteen captives
were taken from the jail and shot, and a pile of
twenty-five dead bodies were found burned in the
woods." As a result of this campaign, not one
Republican vote was cast in the election which
followed a few days later, though prior to this
they had a registered majority of one thousand
and seventy-one.

A similar massacre occurred between the 20th
and 30th of Sep. , 1867, lasting three or four days.
In this there were two hundred Negroes killed.
There were one thousand nine hundred and thirty-
eight Republican votes in the parish by official
registry, but at the ensuing election only one
Republican vote was cast.

About forty Negroes were killed in Caddo parish
during the month of October, 1868. The result
of this massacre was, that General Grant only
received one vote out of a Republican registered
vote of 2,894.

A NEW CENTURY 295

It is shown from official sources that over one
thousand Negroes were whipped, maimed, or mur-
dered for political reasons in the months of Sept,,
Oct., and Nov., 1867, with the result that out of
47,923 registered Republican votes, only 5, 360 were
cast for General Grant. The same policy was
pursued in the Presidential campaign of 1876 and
with a like result.

When it became as much as a poor Negro's life
was worth to persist in voting the Republican
ticket, he did what might have been expected un-
der the circumstances, stopped voting. Now,
among business men of our Northern cities voting
is considered a disagreeable duty, because it takes
them away from the pursuit of wealth for a few
hours. It never seems to occur to them that it would
be money in their pockets, to attend the nominating
conventions and ward meetings, to nominate and
elect men who would be a help and honor to their
country. The result is, the saloon keepers, gam-
blers, and hoodlums run the politics of our North-
ern cities. But the Negro of the South (especially
Louisiana and Mississippi) regarded the ballot as
forbidden fruit, and desired it with as much eager-
ness "as the hart panteth after the water brooks."

Governor St. John had in his office over three
thousand letters on file, from the Negroes of the
South, and the burden of their inquiry was: "Can
we be free, can we have work, and can we have our
political rights.?" Surely they made a very modest
request.

There were two charitable organizations de-
signed to aid these colored emigrants until they
could obtain homes or employment. The first

296 A NEW NEGRO FOR

was organized at St. Louis in 1878. This was
known as "The Refugee Relief Board." Its Presi-
dent was the famous colored minister and friend
of his race, Rev. Moses Dickson, the founder of
the International Order of "Twelve Knights and
Daughters of Tabor."

The Exodus proper had not commenced or was
just in its infancy, but this sagacious colored leader
seemed to expect his people en route for the mighty
West, so made ready to receive them at St. Louis,
and help them on to their destination. This so-
ciety received and cared for about sixteen thousand
men, women and children, fleeing from Southern
oppression. It was the medium for collecting and
distributing to those needy ones thousands of
dollars in money; also hundreds of boxes contain-
ing clothing and provisions.

The other society was organized in May, 1879,
as, "The Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association,'"'
with headquarters atTopeka. This was composed
of the state officers, with a few other leading citi-
zens, and was designed to provide for the destitute
emigrants who had come among them, rather than
to encourage others in coming.

Mrs. Comstock, a kind, motherly old Quaker
lady, came forward and offered her services free of
charge. She was then in her sixty-fourth year,
having spent twenty-five years of her life in reliev-
ing suffering humanity.

John M. Brown was appointed general superin-
tendent of the Freedmen's Relief Association; he
proved to be the right man for the place, and as
great abenefactorto thenegroas"01d John Brown."
Wnen the facts of their destitution were known,

A NEW CENTURY 297

together with its true cause, the hearts of a great
people were touched. Money, food and clothing
poured into the Association, and during the year
about forty thousand dollars in money and five
hundred thousand pounds of clothing and bedding
were distributed.

Mrs. Comstcok was well known, even in England,
for her noble deeds of philanthropy; her friends
there sent her eight thousand dollars in money, and
fifty thousand pounds of goods. One third of the
remainder was furnished by the society of Friends,
and the Christian women of America contributed
a large amount in small sums, through their mite
societies and sewing-circles. Ohio led the states in
the amount of their contribution; followed by New
York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illi-
nois and Iowa in the order named; but nearly every
state sent something. The largest individual gift
was one thousand dollars from John Hall, a Quaker
of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

During their first year the freedmen got pos-
session of twenty thousand acres of land, and culti-
vated three thousand of it. They also accumulated
thirty thousand dollars, and built three hundred
cabins and dug-outs. But this was not accom-
plished without prodigious labor, and overcoming
difficulties apparently insuperable.

Henry Carter, a refugee, who in 1879 had come
to Kansas from Tennessee, started on foot from
Topeka to Dunlap, a distance of sixty-five miles.
He was accompanied by his wife, who carried their
bed-clothes, while he carried his tools. By 1880
he had forty acres of land cleared, and had made
the first payment. He had built a good stone

298 A NEW NEGRO FOR

cottage, sixteen by ten feet, owned a good horse,
two cows, etc., having earned his money by daily
labor on sheep ranches and elsewhere in the neigh-
borhood. In one instance a black man in Graham
County "broke" five acres of raw prairie with a
common spade.

According to the report of John M. Brown,
Superintendent of the Relief Association, about
sixty thousand refugees had come to the state of
Kansas to live, up to February of 1880. Nearly
forty thousand of them were in a destitute condi-
tion when they arrived, and had been helped by
the Association. They had received sixty-eight
thousand dollars, which had been used to the best
advantage possible under all circumstances. Of
the number reported, five thousand had gone to
other states, thirty thousand had settled in the
country on their own or rented lands, or hired out
to the farmers, leaving about twenty-five thousand
in or around the different towns or cities of Kan-
sas.

Referring to the fact that the refugees managed,
by the help of this Association, to get through the
winter in tolerable comfort, a correspondent for
Scribner's Monthly of that period remarks: "For-
tunately, they long ago learned to be content with
a very meager diet, and seem able to make a feast
on what would haunt white persons with visions of
starvation. 'Gimme a sack o' meal an' a side o*
meat,' said one of them, *an' my folks kin git along
han'som', and many of them did get along through-
out the winter with little more than corn-bread and
bacon — and there were chickens roosting in the
neighborhood too. All things considered, they

A NEW CENTURY 299

have given convincing evidence of their disposition
to work, and to be honest, and sober, and frugal. . .
Such as got work at any price, did not ask assist-
ance; those who were compelled to apply for aid
did it slowly, as a rule, and rarely came a second
time. Not a single colored tramp was in Kansas
all winter; and only one colored person was con-
victed of any crime."

Stearns has beautifully said, "God tempers the
wind to the shorn lamb." This certainly was true
in the case of these poor, half-clad colored refu-
gees from man's oppressions, who blindly yet
beautifully trusted "de good Lord," with a faith
that was seldom equaled, for the first winter of
their stay in Kansas was the mildest in the history
of that state. As one of their preachers expressed
it, "God seed dat de darkies had thin clo's, an'
he done kep'de cole off."

The state officers in time withdrew from the
Relief Association, and left its work in the hands
of representatives of the different denominations,
with immediate executive control vested in the
Society of Friends. The Negro found, as in the
anti-slavery struggle, that a Friend in need was a
Friend indeed. Too much praise cannot be given
to this band of philanthropists, whose hearts were
ever touched by the cry of distress. But the effort
of the Friends was promptly and ably seconded by
the other denominations, and right nobly was the
arduous task performed.

The Southern people were greatly agitated over
this wholesale emigration of their laboring class.
For in their moments of calm reflection they
knew full well that three things were indispensable

300 A NEW NEGRO FOR

to the South, the Negro, the mule, and cotton;
and as their white men would not work, the Negro
and mule were necessary adjuncts to a cotton crop.
The exodus wrung from a number of independent
Southern Journals a confession of the fiendish
practice of bulldozing and kukluxing, by their de-
mands that such practice should be abandoned be-
fore it drove all the better class of Negroes from the
South. In short, the Southern leaders began to
realize that they must treat the Negro justly, and
give him his political rights, or lose his labor; and
the only way to stop the exodus was fair treatment
to those who remained The subject was also dis-
cussed from the pulpit and rostrum of the South.

C. K Marshall, D.D.,of Vicksburg, Mississippi,
in an address on the exodus delivered January 21,
1880, seems to favor the idea, but urges the Ne-
groes to go to Africa, "the land of their fathers,"
instead of remaining in this country. If the gentle-
man had noticed the large number of mulattoes all
over the South, and especially in Vicksburg, he
would have decided with us, that the negro was
already in the land of his fathers.

As might have been expected, this Southern
white man is blinded by prejudice, and cannot do
the Negro justice. Hear him: "Trades they cannot
learn. Ask the 'Trades Unions' of Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore how many Ne-
groes belong to them.? And the answer would be,
nearly none, practically none." But he does not tell
us why the Negro does not learn trades — Simply
because he is debarred from them, on account of
his black skin and because of his "previous con-
dition of servitude." But if the Negroes of the

A NEW CENTURY 301

South do not learn trades (because they are not
permitted), no more, as a rule, do the Southern
white men, with nothing on earth to prevent them
but their own indolence and foolish pride, a legacy
of their "peculiar institution." Our best mechanics
are still the Yankee and the foreigner.

Nevertheless the good Doctor continues, un-
mindful of the fact that his whole argument is a
straddle, and series of contradictions. The paren-
theses, of course, are ours: " Briefly view the situation
from what point of the political, social, and indus-
trial compass you may, the Negro must forever re-
main a dwarf on American soil." Near the close
of his address he says, "They will return (to Africa)
with stalwart physical, manly vigor," ( he has just
said 'he must forever remain a dwarf) womanly
culture, refinement, and piety. They will carry a
higher type of intelligence, and a wider range of
powers than was dreamed of by their most enlight-
ened ancestral seers; a knowledge of science, agri-
culture, mechanism, law, medicine, and divinity."
(How can they learn all this except among other
people?) "They will go back with the Bible, the
hymn-book, and the knowledge of the one true
God, and Jesus Christ the adorable Savior. They
will build the school-house, the college, the uni-
versity," (if in Africa, why not here.?) "they will
issue periodicals from their own presses, cloth from
their own looms, shoes from their own shops, coin
from their own mints, cargoes of merchandise from
their own wharves, justice from their own courts,
and laws from their own congress." If the Negro
must "forever remain a dwarf," and "trades they
cannot learn, "as Mr. Marshall has informed us, how

302 A NEW NEGRO FOR

can the colored man accomplish all these mighty
deeds he predicts, in Africa? And if he can do
all this in Africa, and we do not question it, why
can he not do it, and more, in happy, free Amer-
ica, 'the land of his fathers?' We believe he can
and will. The Neg^ro certainly has greater facul-
ties for acquiring knowledge, and picking up trades,
in spile of the Trades Union, in this great free
country, than he could hope to enjoy among the
uncivilized Negroes of the Guinea Coast.

Here is the black man's home and here he will
remain. He is over nine millions strong, and a
peace-loving, native-born American citizen. And
if the Trades Union continue to debar him, he will
simply have a Trades Union of his own, where the
young colored men can learn trades.

The worthy Doctor's statements are not only
contradictory, but he is plainly trying to resurrect
that old dead and buried African Colonization So-
ciety, which Wm. Lloyd Garrison rendered an
object of ridicule, by showing that in the zenith
of its glory, a great many more slaves were brought
from Africa each year than the Society had ever
sent there during all the years of its existence.

Contrast, if you please, this strange address,
which was clearly made for buncombe, with the
following manly and eloquent review of the ex-
odus by a colored statesman and orator, Hon
John M. Langston, ex-minister to Hayti. This
address was delivered by invitation, before the
Emigrant Aid Society, at Lincoln Hill, Washington,
D. C, October 7, 1879.

"Herodotus tells of a Scythian general who, re-
turning with his army after a protracted expe-

A NEW CENTURY 303

ditioii, found their slaves had taken possession of
their households, their wives and the management
of public affairs. He counseled his comrades to
throw away their weapons, their arrows and their
darts, andmeet their opponents without any means
of defense save the whip which they used upon
their horses Said he: 'Whilst they see us with
arms, they think themselves our equals in birth
and importance, but as soon as they shall see us
with whips in our hands, they will be impressed
with a sense of their servile condition and resist
no longer.' The plan was adopted and proved a
success. This illustrates the feeling generally
entertained between the old master and his former
slaves.

"How shall the American ex-slave, who has served
for two hundred and forty-five years in slavery,
be released from the control of a class heretofore
his masters.? The history of the world offers but
one solution to this question, and that solution is
found in his exodus. Let him go forth, where
sympathy and the recognition of liberty and usual
rights are accorded him ; where labor is to be per-
formed; where struggle is to be made, where the
stern realities of life are to be met; there let him
demonstrate his courage, his self-reliance, his
manly independence. Under such new conditions,
his capacities, his power, and his efforts will win
the crown which befits the brow of noble man-
hood. . . The South has not changed a great
deal for the better. Nor has the feeling of the
non-slave-holding class of the South undergone
any material change with respect to the freedmen.
Indeed, it seems to be true that this class hates

304 A NEW NEGRO FOR

the colored man more now than when he was a
slave, and stands ready at the command of the
aristocratic class to do its bidding even to the
shedding of his blood. As showing that this con-
dition of affairs is true, and that little advance-
ment has been made, one has only to pronounce
in your hearing certain terrible words coined in
connection with the barbarous, cruel treatment that
has been meted out to the emancipated class of
Mississippi, Louisiana, and other states formerly
slave-holding. What is the meaning of the frightful
words 'Kuklux,' ^Bulldozers,' and the terrible ex-
pressions, *the shot-gun or Mississippi policy?'
The meaning is clear. It is that neither the old
slave-holding spirit, or the old slave-holding purpose
or control is dead in the South; that plantocracy,
with its fearful power and influence, has not passed
away; that the colored American under it, is in a
condition of practical enslavement, trodden down
and outraged by those who exercise control over
him. Such things will continue so long as the spirit
of slavery exists in the South; so long as the f reed-
man consents to remain in a condition more terrible
than any serfage of which history gives account.
How can this condition of things be broken up.^
How can the master class be made to realize that it
is no longer slave-holding, and the slave has been set
free.^ And how can the freedman be made to feel
and realize that having been emancipated, practical
liberty is within his reach, and that it is his duty to
accept and enjoy it, with its richest fruits.?

"To the intelligent and sagacious inquirer, there
can be, as it seems to me, but a single answer. It is
this. Let the freedman of the South, as far as

A NEW CENTURY 305

practicable, take from the old plantocracy, by his
exodus, the 'strong arms, broad shoulders, stalwart
bodies, which, by compulsion, have been made to
prop and sustain such system too long already in
this day of freedom. Let him stand from beneath,
and the fabric will fall, and a new and necessary
reconstruction will follow.

"But is it possible to transfer all the freedmen from
the Southern part of the country? Perhaps not.
It is, however, possible and practicable to so reduce
the colored laborers of the South by emigration to
the various states of the North and West, as to
compel the land-holders — the planters — to make
and to observe reasonable contracts with those
who remain, to compel all white classes there to
act in good faith, and address themselves to nec-
essary labor upon the plantation, as well as else-
where obeying the law and respecting the rights
of their neighbors.

"Even the exodus movement just commenced,
small as it is, insignificant as it appears to be, has
produced in this regard a state of feeling in the
South which justifies entirely the opinion here ex-
pressed. Where shall he go.? It has already been
indicated that the North and West furnish the
localities open to the freedman and to which he
should go. It certainly would not be wise for him
in large numbers to settle in any one state of the
union ; but even in thousands, he would be received,
welcomed to kind, hospitable homes in the various
states of the sections named, where labor, edu-
cational advantages, and the opportunity to rise
as a man, a citizen and a voter would be furnished
him.

3o6 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Objections — " But it is claimed that the Negro
should remain in the South and demand of the
Government protection from the wrongs which
are perpetrated against him. Here it must be
remembered that in emigrating from the South to
the North or West, the freedman is simply moving
from one section of our common country to an-
other, simply exercising his individual right to go,
when and where it suits his convenience and ad-
vantage. In the next place, it is in exercising such
constitutional rights that he leaves a section of the
country where slavery has created a barbarous and
oppressive public sentiment, the source of all the
abuses which he suffers.

"But it is claimed that the freedman cannot en-
dure a Northern and Western climate, that the
winters are too severe for him.

"Never was a greater mistake. While it is true
the colored man, as he goes North into colder re-
gions, adapts himself with ease to the climate. In
no part of our country does he show more robust
health, finer physical development and endurance,
and consequent longevity, than in the Western and
Northern portion of our country. It is where the
zymotic and malarial disorders prevail, that the
Negro sickens and dies, and this is abundantly
shown in the fearful death rate that is given by
sanitarians, as connected with the warm and
tropical regions of our own and other countries.

"Again it is urged that the freedman is too poor
to emigrate. Those who urge this objection ought
to remember, that it is the poor and oppressed in
all ages and in all countries who have emigrated.
One never emigrates only as he seeks to improve

A NEW CENTURY 307

his condition, to relieve himself and family of want,
to escape oppression and abuse. It is wise for the
poor, starving, oppressed Irishman to quit the
country of his nativity to seek a new home in our
goodly land, where opportunity of culture, the ac-
cumulation of wealth, advancement and success
await his endeavors. Then let no man either des-
pise or oppose the exodus of the freedman, who
now, realizing his real condition, emigrates from
the old plantation and Negro quarter, from the
scene of his former enslavement, from the hateful
and oppressive control of a stupid and tyrannical
landed aristocracy, from poverty, from ignorance,
from degradation, to a home among those who
value freedom, free institutions, educational and
material, moral and Christian worth, individual
efforts and achievement — to a home among those
who, loyal to God and man, never fail to give
sympathy, success and hospitable welcome to the
needy son of Ireland, or the yet more needy son of
Mississippi, who comes seeking, not only liberty,
but the opportunity to labor,to live and achieve in
their midst. I do most reverently and heartily ac-
cept the lesson contained in the words: 'I have
surely seen the affliction of my people which are
in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of
their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows and I am
come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land
unto a good land, and large, unto a land flowing
with milk and honey.'"

One of the best plantation songs we have heard,
was written by Thomas P. Westendorf, commem-
orative of this event, entitled:

3o8

A NEW NEGRO FOR

GOING FROM DE COTTON FIELDS.

*'I's going from de cotton fields, I's going from de cane,

I's going from de ole log hut dat stands down in de lane;

De boat am in de ribber dat hab come to take me off,

's gone and jined de 'Exodus' dat's making for de Norf.

Dey tell me out in Kansas, dat's so many miles away,

De colored folks am flocking, 'cause dey're getting better pay-,

I don't know how I'll find it dar, but I is bound to try,

So when de sun goes down to-night I's going to say good-bye.

Chorus, — I's going from de cotton fields,
And ah! it makes me sigh;
For when de sun goes down to-night,
I's going to say good-bye.

"But Dinah she don't want to go, she says we're getting old,

She's 'fraid dat she will freeze to death, the country am so cold;

De story 'bout de work and pay she don't believe am true,

She's begged me not to do the thing dat I am bound to do.

And so I's sold de cabin and de little patch of groun',

Dat good ole master gave us, when de Yankee troops came down;

My heart am awful heavy, and de tears am in my eye.

For when de sun goes down to-night I's going to say good-bye.

Chorus. —

"It grieves me now to leave the place where I was born and bred.
To leave de friends dat's living, and de graves of dem dat's dead;
De flow'rs dat grow where master sleeps will miss my tender care.
No hand like mine will ever go to keep dem blooming there.
But den de times hab got so hard, and I is ole and poor,
De hungry wolf am looking in and snarling at my door;
I's got to help de chil'ren some before I comes to die,
So when de sun goes down to-night I's going to say good-bya."

Chorus. —

CHAPTER XV.
KENTUCKY'S HOSPITALITY.

Some of the pioneer settlers of Kentucky, con^
temporary with Boone and Kenton, brought their
negro servants with them. Naturally these shared
with their masters the hair-breadth escapes and
perilous adventures of that period, and often dis-
played bravery unsurpassed.

In Collin's history of Kentucky, the following in-
cident is recorded: "In the year 1781 or 2, near
Crab Orchard, in Lincoln County, a very singular
adventure occurred at the house of a Mr. Woods.
One morning he left his family, consisting of a
wife, and daughter not yet grown, and a lame Negro
man, and rode off to the station near by, not ex-
pecting to return until night. Mrs. Woods, being
a short distance from her cabin, was alarmed by
discovering several Indians advancing towards it.
She instantly screamed loudly in order to give the
alarm, and ran with her utmost speed, in the hope
of reaching the house before them. In this she

309

3IO A NEW NEGRO FOR

succeeded, but before she could close the door the
foremost Indian had forced his way into the house.
He was instantly seized by the lame Negro, and
after a short scuffle, they both fell with violence,
the Negro underneath.

"Mrs. Woods was too busily engaged in keeping
the door closed against the party without to at-
tend to the combatants, but the Negro, holding the
Indian tightly in his arms, called to the young girl
to take the ax from under the bed and dispatch
him by a blow on the head. She immediately at-
tempted it, but the first attempt was a failure. She
repeated the blow and killed him. The other In-
dians were at the door endeavoring to force it open
with their tomahawks. The heroic Negro now rose
and proposed to Mrs. Woods to let in another,
andthey would soon dispose of the whole of them
in the same way. The cabin was only a short dis-
tance from the station, the occupants of which,
having discovered the perilous situation of the fam-
ily, fired on the Indians and killed another, when
the remainder made their escape."

Not even the name of this black hero is given,
when he justly merited his freedom for this brave
deed.

Mrs. Connelly's "Story of Kentucky" gives the
following incident:

"When Kentucky was first settled, a night at-
tack was made by a band of Indians upon the
home of Edmund Cabell, during his absence in Vir-
ginia. The family were left in the care of an uncle
to Mrs. Cabell,' and black Sam, a brave, able-
bodied slave.

"The day preceding the massacre had been very

HON. H. A. RUCKER,
Collector Internal Revenue, State of Georgia.

311

312 A NEW NEGRO FOR

hot and sultry, so Sam was sleeping on a bunch of
hay in the edge of the woods. About midnight he
was awakened by a blaze of light at the cabin,
which he now discovered to be in flames. At the
same instant he saw that the house was surround-
ed by Indians, who now began a general massacre
of the family, all of whom, with one exception, were
killed by the light of their burning home. The
exception was a little girl, who was carried out of
the building by one of the Indians and laid down
about halfway between the house and where our
colored hero was crouching behind the hay. The
Indians now returned to the house to get more
plunder; this was Sam's opportunity; creeping cau-
tiously through the grass and weeds at imminent
danger of being seen by the light of the burning
house, or attracting the attention of the Indians
by any disturbance he might make among the
bushes.

"Providence favored him, and he reached the child
in safety, clasped her in one strong arm, and retraced
his steps in the same cautious manner. He was well
acquainted with the child, and managed to keep
her quiet, until there was quite a distance between
him and the Indians. He aimed for the nearest
Fort and traveled all night. About noon next
day, having lost his direction, he was weak from
hunger and exhaustion. He found a spring of
water, and ripe berries which kept him and the
child from starving. Traveling for the most part
at night, and hiding at every sound for fear ^ of
Indians, he reached the Fort with the little girl,
both of them more dead than alive, for they had
spent three nights and a portion of the intervening
days in the woods.

A NEW CENTURY 313

"Sam now returned to his master's farm to look
after whatever live stock was left. And when the
master returned from Virginia and was viewing
the blackened ruins of his once happy home, faith-
ful Sam appeared before him, and kept him from
utter despair, by giving him the first intelligence
that little Augusta, the darling of his heart, was
alive and safe at the Fort.

"Mr. Cabell now gladdened Sam's heart by tellmg
him that he had brought his family with him from
Virginia, in consideration of his faithfulness and
lonely condition in the wilderness. So Sam was in
some measure rewarded for his heroism and fidelity.

"Augusta Cabell became in time one of the most
beautiful young ladies in Kentucky, and was very
grateful to her dusky defender."

On March 22, 1794, William Bryant, of Lincoln
County, advertised for his negro man, Sam, and
offered ten dollars reward for securing him, so that
the owner could get him again. This was the
first slave advertised in Kentucky. Such adver-
tisements became quite common, not only in this
state but throughout the South,sometimes offering
rewards for runaway slaves, alive or dead. There
were, perhaps, fewer such advertisements in Ken-
tucky papers than any Southern state.

The truth is, in the words of N. S. Shaler, "the
Negroes of Kentucky were not generally suffering
from any bonds that weighed heavily upon them.
Slavery in Kentucky was of the domestic sort; that
is, it was, to most of their race, not a grievous bur-
den to bear. This is well shown by the fact that
thousands of them quietly remained with their
masters in the counties along the Ohio River,

314 A NEW NEGRO FOR

when in any night they might have escaped across
the border.

"Still the Underground Railroad System, although
it did not free many slaves in Kentucky, greatly
irritated the minds of their owners, and even of the
class that did not own slaves."

''Perhaps," wrote Mrs. Stowe, "the mildest form
of the system of slavery is to be seen in the state
of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricul-
tural pursuits of a quiet and gradual nature, not
requiring those periodic seasons of hurry and pres-
sure that are called for in the business of more
Southern districts, makes the task of the Negro a
more healthful and reasonable one, while the mas-
ter, content with a more gradual style of acqui-
sition, had not those temptations to hard-hearted-
ness which always overcome frail human nature,
when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is
weighed in the balance with no heavier counter-
poise than the interests of the helpless and un-
protected."

There is much truth in this statement, but it
occurs to me as a Kentuckian, and the son of a
slave-holder, that a number of circumstances con-
tributed to make the lot of the Kentucky slave
much easier than those in the cotton or sugar belt.

In the first place, the nature of the country is
better adapted to labor, being for the most part
elevated and rolling. As there are no swamps to
produce chills and fever, it is a remarkably healthy
country, with a delightful and invigorating cli-
mate. Then too, in the agricultural portions of
the state, instead of vast plantations of thousands
of acres, and a small army of slaves, driven from

A NEW CENTURY 315

morning until night by a brutal overseer, or still
more brutal negro driver, small farms and few
slaves were the rule. As a general rule the Ken-
tucky farmer, or one of his sons, managed the
farm without the aid of a regular hired overseer,
although he would often put one of the slaves in
for foreman. This foreman was generally the best
worker and most trustworthy hand on the farm,
and was expected to lead, not drive the work.

It must not be forgotten that the Kentucky
staples, such as live stock, the cereals, tobacco
and hemp (she leads the world in the two last),
did not yield such immense profits as to tempt the
cupidity of the farmers, or require such forced and
exhausting labor. We are also inclined to the
opinion that this mild form of servitude was largely
due to the fact that the average Kentucky farmer
was and is a whole-souled, big hearted man. Hap-
py, prosperous, and well-fed himself, he liked to
have even his slaves share in his good cheer.

Patty B. Semple, a correspondent for the At-
lantic Monthly, writing of an old Kenutcky home
in the ante-bellum days, says: "After breakfast,
there was always a group of Negroes about the
porch, each one armed with a tin cup or plate,
and waiting for the daily allowance of molasses,
sugar, and coffee to be given out from the store-
room, hoping also for some special tidbit from
the family table." We do not recall having read
any account like that about any other state.

In describing the Blue Grass farmer, she does it
so perfectly that we know she must have been
there. "He was not a hard master, although per-
haps not a particularly indulgent one. A practical

3i6 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

farmer, he insisted that the work should be prop-
erly done, and to keep the indolent, careless Negroes
up to the mark required an immense amount of
oversight. His horse was saddled before break-
fast, and he was mounted, and about the farm
early and late, knowing the old maxim that the
eye of the master will do more work than both
his hands. He went to bed early, usually rose
between three and four o'clock in the morning,
and smoked a meditation pipe on the back porch
before any one else was about, and then at 'sun-
up' his stentorian voice would be heard starting
the hands. His constant companion was a corn-
cob pipe filled with Kentucky tobacco, which was
always lighted by a live coal, and one of the most
common sounds about the place was his call to
one of the little darkies, 'Bring me a coal of fire,
Polly,' or Lizzie, or Tom, as the case might be.
The piece of glowing wood was carried in a pair
of short tongs from the kitchen fire, and as he blew
away the ashes and applied it to his pipe, he put
good-natured, teasing questions to the little Negro
who had brought it. These colloquies were the
source of infinite enjoyment to him and embar-
rassment to his victim, who stood uneasily on
one foot, twisting the other about and boring into
the ground with one great toe, until the tongs
were handed back with some extravagant compli-
ment, and the interview ended."

We are inclined to believe what contributed
most to alleviate the condition of the Kentucky
slave was the constant lashing of conscience. A
large number, perhaps a majority of the people
of the state did not believe slavery was right. Now,

A NEW CENTURY Zi?

we know this bare statement, unbacked by strong
evidence, would not pass unchallenged; but the
evidence, is at hand. There is abundant proof
that the conscience of the great body of the people
was ever sensitive concerning the right of one
man to own another.

The institution was recognized at first, simply
because most of the early settlers were from the
slave-holding states and brought their slaves with
them. From an early period they began to eman-
cipate them, and to place statute restriction on
their importation.

When the new constitution was to be adopted,
thirty thousand votes, representing the wealthiest
and most intelligent slave-holders, were cast in
favor of an open clause, by which gradual emancipa-
tion should become a law, as soon as practical.
One religious denomination after another denounc-
ed slavery as a moral evil. Additional proof that
there was a growing sentiment against this insti-
tution and in favor of a gradual emancipation, is
found in Dr. J. Freeman Clark's "Anti-Slavery
Days." He was a citizen of Kentucky from 1833
to 1840; and states that slavery existed there in a
comparatively mild form, and the sentiment of
the better class of people was decidedly against it,
for the reason that they considered it a wrong and
an evil, that should be abolished.

A young man from Boston called upon Dr.
Clark in Louisville, and was invited to take a drive
with him into the country to visit some of the
plantations. The Boston youth was a member of
one of the very conservative New England families
who opposed abolition as a fanatical movement,

3i8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and thought the abolitionists endangered the safety
of the union.

The first place they came to was the home of
Judge Jno. J. Marshall, who belonged to one of
the old families of Virginia and Kentucky, Mrs.
Marshall being the sister of Jno. G» Birney, after-
wards a candidate for the Presidency on the Free
Soil ticket.

As the Marshalls owned slaves, and there were
a large number of Negro children about the yard,
the young man thought it opportune to speak fa-
vorably of the institution. "Mrs. Marshall," said
he, "I think our people at the North are very much
mistaken in attacking slavery as they do. It seems
to me there is nothing so very bad about it." Mrs.
Marshall replied: "It will not do, sir, to defend
slavery in this family. The Marshalls and the
Birneys have always been abolitionists." Of course
the young man was surprised at that statement
coming from the wife of a slave-holder, but a still
greater surprise awaited him at the next house at
which they called, the home of Judge John Speed,
who had a large plantation and about sixty slaves.

The Boston youth, thinking no doubt that Mrs.
Marshall was an exceptional person, and it would
be safe this time to advocate slavery, said: "Judge,
I do not see but the slaves are as happy as our
laboring classes at the North." "Well." answered
the Judge, "I do the best I can to make my slaves
comfortable; but I tell you what it is, you cannot
make a slave happy, do what you will. God Al-
mighty never meant a man to be a slave, and he
cannot be happy while he is a slave." The young
man continued in amazement, "But what ciin be

A NEW CENTURY 3^9

done about it, sir? They are not able to take care
of themselves, if they were free. How could they
manage if slavery were abolished?"

"I think I could show you three men on my
plantation," replied Judge Speed, "who might go
to the Kentucky legislature ; I am inclined to believe
they would make just as good legislators as the
average men that you find there now." This state-
ment, coming from such a source, astonished the
young man still more; but it was a plain state-
ment of the exact truth.

With the Kentuckian's characteristic fondness for
fair play, the question in all its bearings was freely
discussed. "The Louisville Journal," then edited by
Geo. D. Prentice, was ever ready to welcome and
print articles showing the evils of slavery.

Dr. Clark recalls a discussion in Louisville which
lasted three nights; in that time the whole ques-
tion of slavery was covered; one side assuming
that it was right, and a good thing, and ought to
be maintained; and the other that it was an evil,
morally, socially, and poHtically, and as such
should be abolished. This was not an ordinary
debate, some of the most cultured and intelligent
gentlemen in the city, including Dr. Clark, partici-
pating on either side, and, strange as it may seem,
a majority were on the side of those who con-
tended that it was an evil and a wrong.

The best article on slavery in Kentucky we have
seen was written by James Lane Allen. In his
"Uncle Tom at Home in Kentucky," he quotes the
following extract from a letter to him from Mrs.
Stowe, dated Apr. 30, 1886: "In relation to your
letter, I would say that I never lived in Kentucky,

320 A NEW NEGRO FOR

but spent many years in Cincinnati, which is sep-
arated from Kentucky only by the Ohio River,
which, as a shrewd politician remarked, was nearly
dry one half of the year and frozen the other. My
father was president of Lane Theological Seminary
at Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, and with him I
traveled and visited somewhat extensively in Ken-
tucky, and there became acquainted with those
excellent slave-holders delineated in Uncle Tom's
Cabin. I saw many counterparts of the Shelbys —
people humane, conscientious, just and generous,
who regarded slavery as an evil and were anxiously
considering their duties to the slave, But it was
not till I had finally left the West, and my hus-
band was settled as professor in Bowdoin College,
Brunswick, Maine, that the passage of the fugi-
tive slave law and the distress that followed it
drew this from me."

Thus we find that Mrs. Stowe testifies to the
fact that there was a strong undercurrent of intense
opposition to slavery in Kentucky at that time, and
that the slaves she saw there were well treated.

A close analysis of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" will
impress one with the thought that she first intro-
duced the reader to slavery in Kentucky, because
it was of the mildest form; that she might cap the
climax by an introduction to Legree's Red River
cotton plantation, where it was seen in its most
hideous and brutalizing aspect.

Another proof that the slaves in this state fared
better than elsewhere, is seen in the code of laws
framed to regulate slavery. According to this, "if
slaves were inhumanly treated by their owner, or not

A NEW CENTURY 321

supplied with proper food and clothing, they could
be taken from them and sold to a better master."

A few cases are recorded, of slaves who had been
liberated and sent to Canada, voluntarily returning
into service under their former masters.

Even in Kentucky there were slave-holders, and
slave holders, some good, some bad, and some
very bad. Those who were kindest to their slaves
were ready to put down an abolitionist, whom they
regarded as interfering with their affairs, and bit-
terly hated.

The saddest feature of slavery in this state was
the internal slave trade. That negroes were regu-
larly raised for the Southern market cannot be
denied. That in some cases brutalized white men
sold their own sons and daughters, knowing them
to be such, goes unchallenged; but these were the
exceptions rather than the rule.

The sentiment of a majority of their people be
ing against it, the slave trade was not as large as
is generally believed. Sometimes a farmer would
have among his slaves one that was unruly and
even vicious; such a one was invariably sold
South. But the chief reason for which slaves were
sold was embarrassment by debt on the part of their
master. In this case it often happened that the
most valuable slaves on the farm were sold, as in
the case of Uncle Tom, for the rascally slave
buyers, knowing the master's condition, would have
none but the best.

There is a hint of the cause of such sales, in
the pathetic strain, seldom appreciated;

"By'n by hard tunes comes a-knocking at the door;
Then my Old Kentucky Home, good-night."

On one occasion, all the slaves in a tobacco field

322 A NEW NEGRO FOR

dropped their hoes and chased a rabbit the dogs had
started. A meddlesome neighbor reported the fact
to their master. But he received the indignant an-
swer from the old gentleman, "Sir, I'd have whipped
the last black rascal of 'em if they hadn't run 'im!"

A sketch of slavery in Kentucky would be incom-
plete without some mention of Cassius Marcellus
Clay, "the noblest Roman of them all;" certainly
the greatest of Southern Abolitionists, and perhaps
the equal of any in the nation. This remarkable
man is the son of General Green Clay, and was born
in Madison County, Oct. 19, 18 10. After taking a
course of study at Transylvania University, Lexing-
ton, the same school Jefferson Davis attended, he
graduated at Yale College in 1832.

He took a great interest in politics when a young
man, and represented Madison and Fayette Counties
each in the Legislature, where he made a brilliant
record.

He issued the first copy of the "True American,"
from Lexington, June 3, 1845. This paper was de-
voted to the overthrow of slavery in Kentucky. It
required great courage in those turbulent times to
edit an anti-slavery paper in the South. It seemed
like bearding the lion in his den. But Cassius M.
Clay was the "boldest of all the enemies of slavery."
His soul was afiame with hatred and disgust for hu-
man servitude. Naturally a paper edited by such a
man would be a powerful philippic hurled against the
detested institution; and while it made many friends
for the cause he espoused, it heated its enemies seven
times more than they were wont to be heated.

Accordingly on Aug. 18, 1845, there was a great
mass meeting held in Lexington, of citizens from all
over central Kentucky, irrespective of party. At this
meeting it was resolved that the press and materials

A NEW CENTURY 323

of the "True American" should be sent beyond the
confines of the state. A committee carefully boxed
up all his outfit and shipped it, expenses prepaid, to
Cincinnati; after which they sent Mr. Clay the ad-
dress of the house to which they consigned it, subject
to his order.

The Kentuckian's love of fair play is again reflected
in this incident, when it is remembered that in the
case of Lovejoy the pro-slavery ruffians from Mis-
souri and Illinois murdered him outright, after de-
stroying four presses.

Mr. Clay afterwards obtained judgment against
two of the committee for twenty-five hundred dollars,
which was paid by citizens of Fayette and adjcining
counties.

Mr. Clay commanded the Old Infantry in the Mex-
ican War. Returning home, he was presented with
a sword for gallant conduct. He was also minister
to Russia in 1861, Major General of Volunteers in
1862, and again minister to Russia from 1863 to '69.

He was once nominated for governor of Kentucky,
with George P. Blakey of Logan County on the
ticket for lieutenant-governor.

He now resides at his beautiful home, White Hall,
Kentucky. The sunset of his long life is as peaceful
and quiet as his earlier years were turbulent.

His nephew and namesake, Cassius M. Clay, Jr., of
Bourbon County, is now a strong candidate for gover-
nor. This Mr. Clay has been a member of the Ken-
tucky Legislature, and was President of the late con-
stitutional convention of that state. As he is from
the county where the author spent his "boyhood's
happy hours," and where his people still live, most
of whom are Clay men, and as he is thoroughly
competent to fill the high place to which he aspires,
it is to be hoped he will be elected.

324 A NEW NEGRO FOR

The two greatest sons of Kentucky were Henry
Clay and Abraham Lincoln, for she claims them both,
the one by adoption, the other by birth. Each was
strangely identified with the question of slavery; each
was a pure patriot who loved his country; each was
strictly conscientious in the belief that his own view
was the true solution to the vexatious problem, and
for the best interests of the nation. Kentuckians al-
ways believed in Henry Clay; her cardinal points of
political faith might be summed up in the dictum,
"There is a just God who presides over the destiny oi
nations, and Henry Clay is his prophet." But this hero-
worship was not confined to Kentucky. I remembei
when a boy hearing Theodore Tilton deliver a lecture
at Paris. In speaking of his visit to Henry Clay's
grave and monument, while at Lexington the day
before, he said: "As I neared that sacred spot I im-
agined I heard a voice saying unto me, 'Put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground.' " It is an imposing, awe-in-
spiring monument Kentucky has erected over his re
mains, and can be seen several miles from Lexingtor,
in almost any direction.

Illinois has built a still more imposing monument
in honor of her greatest adopted son, at Springfield.
The author stood once and viewed first the monu-
ment, and then a group of dusky freedmen, as, with
heads reverently uncovered and tears in their eyes,
they were gazing at Lincoln's statue, that the image
might be photographed on their minds and hearts.

It would not have taken them long to decide that
Lincoln was not only a greater man than Clay, but
in some respects the greatest man America ever pro-
duced.

The contrast between the great compromiser and
the great emancipator might be stated in this way.

A NEW CENTURY 325

Henry Clay said, "I would rather be right than to be
President," but he was neither right nor President.
Lincoln made no such boast, but he was do//i i-ig/it
and P resident. Clay no doubt did the best he could
for his day and generation, under all circumstances.
He was frequently misunderstood and misquoted, be-
cause his enemies would persistently put the words of
Cassius M. Clay, the abolitionist, into the mouth of
Henry Clay, the compromiser; the opposite party
could not, or would not, understand that there were
two Clays from Lexington, Kentucky, each of whom
was a prominent politician and statesman, and the
leader of his party in that state, but their views on
the slavery question were as wide apart as the two
poles.

An amusing incident is told by Mrs. Pickard. It
seems that Mr. Clay had a favorite servant named
Aaron, who was his carriage driver. He was very
competent, but would take a drink of whisky every
opportunity, and sometimes become intoxicated. "On
one occasion he drove Mrs. Clay into Lexington,
and while she was shopping, he was drinking. By
the time she was ready to go home Aaron was inca-
pable of driving.

"Much to her mortification, she was compelled to
hire a driver in order to get home. Justly indignant,
she resolved that Aaron should be punished; so she
told her husband all about it. Calling the overseer
to the house the next morning, Mr. Clay repeated
the circumstance and instructed him to take the
offender to the carriage house and give him a light
whipping. "Now, do it quietly, said he, and be sure
not to cut his skin. I don't want to hear any dis-
turbance. Do it as gently as possible."

The overseer assented and went cut. One of the
maids happened to overhear the conversation, and

326 A NEW NEGRO FOR

slipping out of the house, she told Aaron all about it.

"Forewarned is forearmed, and fortifying himself
with a drink of whisky, he meekly responded to the
overseer's call and went with him into the carriage
house, and the door was fastened on the inside. 'I
am sorry to have to whip you,' said the overseer,
*but it is Mr, Clay's orders; he said your drinking
habits had annoyed your mistress and you must be
punished.* 'Well, if Massa say so, then it must be
so, but you needn't tie me — I won't be tied!' 'Very
well,' replied the overseer, throwing down the rope,
'you need not be tied if you will stand still; but you
must take off your coat. ' 'Yes, sir, but if I takes off my
coat to be whipped, you ought to take yourn off first,
to whip me! '

"The overseer saw that he had been drinking and
knew he must indulge his whims if he would obey
Mr. Clay's orders and keep quiet; so he pulled off his
coat, and the slave laid his beside it. Next followed the
two vests. 'Now your shirt, Aaron,' said he. 'Yes, sir,
but you must take off yourn first.' This was going
farther for quiet's sake than the overseer had intended,
but he thought it would be best to humor him. He
had long wished for a chance to humble Aaron, and
the time had come. But behold! no sooner had he
lifted his arms to pull his shirt over his head, than
Aaron seized the garment, a strong new one, and
twisting it around his neck, held him fast. Then
catching the whip, he applied it vigorously to the
overseer's naked back, raising the skin at every stroke.
His victim screamed and threatened him with ven-
geance, but all in vain; the blows fell hard and
fast.

"Mr. Clay heard the outcry and grew angry. *I told
him,' said he, 'to make no noise, and to be sure not
to whip the poor fellow severely. He must be cut-
ting him to pieces.'

A NEW CENTURY 3^7

"He hastened to the carriage house and heard the
whizzing of the whip as it descended on the sufferer's
back. 'Open the door, ' he cried ! *Didn' t I tell you
not to whip him hard? Open the door, I say.'

"♦O, Mr. Clay! it's Aaron whipping me! I haven't
given him a blow.'

"'Aaron,' cried the master, 'open the door! In-
stantly the slave obeyed. With his right hand, in
which he still held the whip that he had used to such
good purpose, he opened the door, while with his left
he retained his vice-like grasp of the twisted shirt.
His face was all complacency, yet his eyes twinkled
with mirth, and a roguish smile lurked at the corner
of his mouth.

"Mr. Clay stood for a moment mute with astonish^
ment. * But when he fully comprehended the strange
scene, he burst into a hearty laugh, and although the
overseer, as soon as he was released, proceeded to
explain to him the manner in which he had been
caught, and insisted that he should now be allowed
to whip Aaron, his arguments were lost. The mas-
ter quietly expressed his opinion that there had been
whipping enough— it was not necessary to go any
farther." ^ ^ ^_

Almost my earliest recollection was the sale which
followed my father's death, at the old homestead in
Fayette County. I remember after the miscellaneous
assortment of farming implements, stock, grain, etc.,
was disposed of,the negroes were put up on the block
and knocked off to the highest bidder. And when
Uncle Lewis, the foreman, who had made me whistles
and toys, and let me ride with him to the field and back,
was put up, and his age was inquired, and his teeth
and muscles examined much as they did the horses at
the barn, it cut me to the heart. But when I after-
wards .«pw Aunt Ann, my black "mammy," who had

328 A NEW NEGRO FOR

carried me in her arms and nursed me on her bosonit
and my little black playmates, who were as dear to
me as any I ever had, put up and disposed of, the iron
entered my soul. Child as I was, I knew that what
I that day witnessed was wrong; and as first impres-
sions are the most lasting, I have never for a mo-
ment thought differently. My opposition to slavery,
thus aroused, has grown with my growth and strength-
ened with my strength, until now "I loathe, abhor,
my very soul with strong disgust is stirred, when-
ever I hear or write or tell of this dark institution of
hell."

My oldest sister married a well-to-do farmer, stock-
dealer, and slave-holder in southern Kentucky. After
my mother's family moved to Paris, this sister, with
her husband, baby girl and nurse, came on a few
weeks' visit. My mother's cook, Aunt Dinah, was
very industrious, but a genuine Guinea negro and a
veritable virago. She ruled over the nurse and house
girl with a rod of iron, for she frequently brandished
the poker, as she scolded and berated them for some
misdemeanor. Every one on the place except the
mistress, stood in awe of her.

Now, my little niece was devoted to her nurse
Ellen; and though little more than a baby, was a
precocious child; she seldom spoke, but when she did
it was plain and pointed.

Of course this little tot stood in awe of Aunt Dinah
and seldom played around the kitchen. But one day
when the cook was administering her usual tongue
lashing to the nurse, the baby girl plucked her apron
to attract attention, and said, her eyes flashing, "I
thinks you treats my Ellen mighty mean!" At this
the cook jumped back and threw up both hands in
amazement, and said, "Fo de Lord, whar dat chile
come from? never know'd she could talk!" She never
abused Ellen after. this«.

A NEW CENTURY 329

On one occasion while visiting relativt. the

country I went fishing in company with my ^ /.in, a
boy older and larger than myself. We had good luck
and caught a nice string of small fish.

Late in the afternoon, a black girl, nearly grov/n,
named Seeley,rode out into the pasture on horseback
where we were, to drive up the cows. Like every
other town boy, I was eager for a ride, and as my
cousin was willing to carry the poles and fish, I wai
soon on the horse behind the girl, and we were gal-
loping to the back part of the pasture.

Just as she was whipping the horse into still greater
speed, the girth broke, and the saddle turning, threv.
us both to the ground with violence. She landed on
her feet and was not hurt, but I broke a leg by the
fall. My cousin, who saw the accident, turned back;
between them they caught the horse, and having re-
saddled it, put me on its back, and while one of them
led the horse, the other walked by my side and sup-
ported the broken leg.

The girl was in great distress, and said "she knew
the white folks would kill her for that." My cousin
thought so too, and to prevent her being severely
punished, who was not in any way to blame, except
that she rode too fast thinking to please me, we con-
trived a very plausible explanation of the accident.
"Let us tell them," said the girl, "that you raised up
a rock to get a fishing worm, and accidentally let it fall
back against your leg and broke it." This we agreed
to do, and even decided which rock it was, namely,
the one nearest the stump at the end of the dam.
Well, it was a deliberate falsehood, but I believe the
recording angel blotted it out under the circumstances.
For years afterwards the identical rock that fell
against the boy's leg and broke it, was pointed out
to passers-by.

330 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Every one hasread of "Jimmie Butler and the owl,"
but I propose to tell you about Tom Butler and the
mule. The circumstance happened on my Uncle's
farm, about seven miles from Paris, where I spent
several vacations when a boy. There were seven
hundred acres in the farm, and of course he employed
a good many hands, mostly Negroes. Among them
was this Tom Butler, a young man about twenty years
of age; and with the work stock, was a big one-eyed
sorrel mule named Jack, who could jump a fence even
if it was mule high, and throw his rider without any
apparent effort. One day I was riding him out to
work, when Tom Butler rattled his shoes, while sit-
ting on the fence on the blind side of the mule; im-
mediately he arched his back and shot skyward; I
found myself on the ground, but not hurt. My cousin,
who was manager, happened to see it, and made the
Negro get on the mule, and took me up behind him
on his horse. We rode on ahead and left the other
hands to follow. Now we had occasion to go up on
one side of a "branch" through the corn-field to get
to our work. Here there were some tall horse weeds
beside the path. At the suggestion of my cousin, I
concealed myself in those weeds, armed with a long,
sharp stick. When the mule and his rider came
along I punched him in the ribs on the blind side with
my stick; you can readily imagine what happened.
My cousin was looking backward at the time, and he
declared that the mule's feet actually got up higher
than the corn tassels. The first jump was not suffi-
cient to throw him, for though the Negro was elevated
some distance in the air, he fell back straddle of the
mule.

Jack now saw that he had more than an ordinary
rider, and as he had never failed before, and had his
reputation at stake, he arched his back and shot up

A NEW CENTURY 3V

ward like a rocket; and the Negro, well, he fell flat
on his back in the mud and water of this little creek.
I fully expected a fight or a foot race, but no, the
good-natured fellow was not hurt; he arose, pulled
himself out of the mire, and with a grin on his face
said, "We is eben now; less quit."

After my sister was left a widow, I made my home
with her for five years, and managed her farm and
other business. Tobacco was the great staple, and
in its culture we sometimes had poor whites from
Tennessee, and colored people, as tenants or hired
hands. But the blacks were infinitely more satisfac-
tory. They had been taught to work in a cruel and
exacting school, and the lesson was weM learned.

Among the black people on the place was an intelli-
gent mulatto named Griffin Taylor, and his family.
He had belonged to a wealthy but hard master; had
also been a soldier during the war. He was now get-
ting old, and being afflicted with rheumatism, so that
he worked under great pain and disadvantage, and
having a large family, he was always hard pressed
to make a living. I remarked to him one day,
"Griffin, did you not fare better when a slave than you
do now.-^"

"Boss," was the reply, "have you read the fable of
the fat cur dog and the lean wolf.? Well, in those
days I was a fat cur dog; I was fed, passably clothed,
and well worked, and if I ventured off the farm at
night without a pass I was liable to be well whipped.
I was simply chained to the place, a mere machine
or animal. Now I am like that lean wolf; I have a
hard scuffle to get enough to eat, but I am free to go
where I please and no man can stop me. Better a
thousand fold liberty with poverty, than plenty with
slavery." And this sentiment is practically endorsed
by all with whom I have ever talked on the subject.

ZZ2 A NEW NEGRO FOR

It was at this time I made a study of the Negro
race. I found much in their dispositions and char-
acters that was admirable. In the first place, they
were ambitious to excel in their work. This ambition
could be aroused by just and honest settlements, by
discreet and honest commendation, not flattery, and
by getting up a friendly rivalry between two cham-
pions, or set of hands. Put them on their honor and
show that you have confidence in them, and you will
seldom find your confidence misplaced.

For instance, my sister had for a cook a colored
auntie, Aunt Mandy, or "Black Mammy" as we some-
times called her. She was brought up and trained
under the old regime, and the very soul of honor.
My sister and her family could go and leave her any
length of time, knowing that when they returned,
everything would be in as good condition as when
they left.

In the Blue Grass Region, most of the Negroes have
settled in little villages of their own, around the large
towns. Here the more thrifty of them own their
homes, and others can rent on reasonable terms.
The men go in numbers and work for the farmers
from Monday morning until Saturday night. There
are no better farm laborers in America than those
Kentucky black men. The women, however, are not
inclined to be as industrious. Often during harvest
or thrashing, a farmer can get more help than he
wants of the very best quality, but his wife can
hardly get help in the kitchen for love or money,
when at the nearest colored town there are scores of
strong young women absolutely idle; they will not
go into the country to work. Still a few of the wom-
en are as industrious as the men.

The colored farm hands have monopolized the work
in hemp, especially cutting and breaking; this is due

A NEW CENTURY 333

to the fact that such work is very heavy, and un-
pleasant owing to the dust which is constantly flying.
White men cannot endure the dust and refuse to
work at it.

The work they seem to take the most pride in is
around the stable where the trotting or race horses
are trained. Here the negro is in his glory as a rub-
ber, rider, driver, or even trainer; for some of the
most successful premium and race winners in Ken-
tucky have no other trainers but colored men. They
take as much pride in a horse they train or drive in
a race, as the owner, and of course could not be
bribed to "throw off" a race.

However, a colored man could not fail to take in-
terest in horses if he lived in that favored state; \t is
simply contagious, especially around Lexington, the
fast horse center of the universe. Office and parlor
of the leading hotels are filled with paintings of horses
in the very poetry of motion. If two men are en-
gaged in an earnest conversation, nine times out of
ten they are talking "horse." I was in the Phoenix
Hotel office one day, when a gentleman introduced
two others as follows: "Allow me to present my
friend Colonel Blank, better known as the owner of
Membrino." Indeed "horseology," to coin a word, is
considered one of the essential accomplishments of a
Blue Grass belle; while the young men imagine the
"halo around the moon to be a glorious celestial
race track."

Another characteristic of the Negro I have often
noticed. They are never willing to acknowledge that
they are perfectly well; you can often hear a conver-
sation about like this: "How you do dis mo'nin' ?"
"I'm tol'able."

"How you,Unc' Dick?" "I'm tol'able, bless God!"

"How Rachel?" "She's tol'able." "How Unc'

334 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Billy?" "He's tor able." "The chil'un all well?"
"Yes'um, dey all tol'able." When probably every
individual inquired about was in almost perfect
health.

However, we think with Judge W. M. Beckner
of the Winchester Democrat, that "the Negro pop-
ulation of Kentucky is of a better class than that of
the cotton states."

The circle of those who recognize the "Brother in
Black" as a useful element in the social forces of the
South, is widening from year to year.

He has a record of moral and intellectual inprove-
ment without a parallel in the history of the world/'

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

335

CHAPTER XVL

FATHERS TO THE RACE.

I. Frederick Douglass: — It is not known just
when this remarkable man was born; but he supposes
it was in February, 1817, in the village ofTuckahoe,
Maryland.

His mother's name was Harriet Bailey, and he re-
members that she was the only black person in the
village who could read; he also recollects that she
was quite black and glossy; and as he is many shades
lighter, his father must have been a white man.
Frederick had an older brother named Perry, and
four sisters. His mother, as if anticipating his future
career of greatness, gave him a name in keeping with
it; she called him Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey; but after his escape, wishing to conceal his
identity, he took the name he has since borne.

The Negroes on his master's plantation received
the usual cruelty accorded slaves in Maryland at this
time. Many were the floggings the boy witnessed,
which brought blood from the backs of the victim ot
an overseer's lash.

However, there were a few bright spots in his plan-
tation life to which he could look back with pleasure.

His master's daughter, Mrs. Thomas Auld, called
by the slaves "Miss Lucretia," treated him with great
kindness; indeed he became quite a pet with her, and
often when hungry, his usual condition, would sing
under her window, receiving for his pay a slice of

336

A NEW CENTURY 337

bread and butter. When struck on the forehead
b/ another slave boy, she it was who dressed his
bleeding wound.

After this, he was sent by his master to Baltimore,
where his new mistress, the wife of Hugh Auld, was
very kind to him, and began teaching him to read;
but was prevented by her husband, who said in the
presence of the boy, that "learning would ruin any
nigger" and if Fred was taught to read the Bible it
would be impossible to keep him a slave. The words
of his master were treasured up by our young hero,
who resolved at all hazards to get learning, and with
all his getting to "get understanding."

He always carried a Webster's spelling book in his
pocket, and induced his little white playmates to give
him instructions. He turned bootblack, and earned
fifty cents with which he bought a "Columbian Ora-
tor,"and read with such avidity he might be said to
have devoured it.

In 1834 Frederick's master hired him to one Covey,
a prominent Methodist in the same county, who talked
religion on Sunday to his slaves, and prayed before
them morning and evening; but his treatment of
them was not in keeping with his profession. When
he had been there but a few days, Covey sent him
with a yoke of unruly oxen to draw in wood from the
fjrest. This would have been a difBcult task for an
experienced ox driver; but our hero had never driven
oxen before, and as might have been expected, they
became unmanageable, tangling themselves and the
cart, until it was hard work releasing them; however,
this was finally accomplished, and with his load on
he started to the house; but the oxen ran away even
with the load on the cart;breaking the gate to pieces,
they almost crushed the driver between the wheel
and the gate-post. He did not reach the house until

338 A NEW NEGRO FOR

late noon, but Covey at once ordered him back for
a second load; and following after saw what had been
done. He now cut three black gum sprouts, noted
for their toughness, from four to six feet long; tearing
off Frederick's clothes, he wore them out on his bare
back, one at a time, and his coarse shirt kept the
sores rubbed and open for weeks. On another oc-
casion during a hot afternoon in August, Frederick
was taken deathly sick while carrying wheat to a fan.
Covey saw him lying on the ground, and with a brutal
kick in the side, ordered him to rise; he made an
effort and fell back, but a second heavy kick brought
him to his feet, only to fall helpless on attempting
to pick up the tub of wheat and chaff. Upon which
Covey struck him over the head with a stick, causing
the blood to gush out, saying,"! will cure your head-
g^he." His victim was still too weak to rise, and was
left bleeding in a fence corner. The flow of blood
relieved his dizziness, and he determined to go and
complain to his master; seeking a moment when
Covey's back was turned, he crept into the woods,
where, after resting a while, he made his way almost
exhausted to St. Michaels, and reported to Captain
Auld, only to be sent back the next day. He did not
present himself before Covey until Sunday morning,
having spent Saturday night with a slave named
Sanday and his wife, who gave him food and minis-
tered to his wants. Brother Covey received him
kindly, for it was the Sabbath, and the good man (.?)
was just starting to church.

He attempted to whip Fred once more after this,
but the worm turned on him. The slave had noticed,
"men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest."
He determined to resist, and did so with such suc-
cess that he drew blood from Covey without losing a
drop himself.

LOUIS B. ANDERSON,
Assistant County Attorney Cook County, Illinois.

340 A NEW NEGRO FOR

He never attempted to whip him afterwards. He
was a slave four years longer, but was never again
whipped, for whenever it was attempted he always
gave as good as he received, sometimes better.

In 1835-6 he was hired from his master by one Mr.
Freeland; here he received kind treatment, and found
a way to open a Sunday-school. He also determined
to preach the gospel, and after all had retired to bed
would go out and address the pigs as "Dear Breth-
ren."

After this, he was sent to Baltimore and appren-
ticed to a ship-builder. From here he escaped, dis-
guised as a sailor, and fled to New York. Here he
was joined by his sweetheart, Anna Murray of Balti-
more, a free woman of color, and they were married.
The bride and groom pushed on to New Bedford,
where he hoped to get work at his trade, that of
calking ships.

He worked in New Bedford at shoveling coal, saw-
ing wood, digging cellars, or any other odd job that
came to hand, until he finally secured work at calk-
ing whalers in the ship yard.

On August nth, 1841, he was invited for the first
time to address an audience of white people in a con-
vention at Nantucket. He arose with fear and trem-
bling,being much embarrassed, but managed to stam-
mer through a short speech, wherein he thanked the
champions of liberty for what they had done and
were doing for his enslaved race. He made a good
impression, however, and after urgent solicitation
opened the convention next morning.

Douglass on this occasion and afterwards, amused
the people and proved that he had been a slave, by
giving the following extract from a slave-holding
minister's sermon to an audience of slaves on the
text, "Servants.obey in all things your masters." —

A NEW CENTURY 341

"The Lord in His Providence sent pious souls over
to Africa — dark, heathen, benighted Africa, to bring
you into this Christian land, where you can sit be-
neath the droppings of the sanctuary and hear about
Jesus. The Lord has so established things that only
through the channel of obedience can happiness flow.
For instance— Sam, the other day, was sent out by
his master to do a piece of work that would occupy
about two hours and a half. At the expiration of
that time, Sam's master went out; and, lo and be-
hold! there lay Sam's hoe in one place, and Sam in
another, fast asleep. The master remembered the
v^ords of scripture: 'He that knoweth his master's
will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many
stripes!' So Sam was taken up and whipped, so that
he was disabled from doing any work for the space
of three weeks and a half. For only through the
channel of obedience can happiness flow."

It was after he had spoken at Oakland, Ohio, that
one Irishman remarked to another: "And what do
you think of that for a Naygur?"

"Be aisy," was the answer, "he's only half a Nay-
gur."

"And if half a Naygur can speak like that, what
could a whole one do?"

His companions soon learned it was wise to have
Douglass the last speaker on the program, if they
wanted to hold their audience to the end.

At Grafton, Massachusetts, he advertised his own
meeting by ringing a bell through the streets and
crying, "Notice! Frederick Douglass, recently a slave,
will lecture on American slavery, on Grafton Common,
this evening at seven o'clock." He was greeted by
a great audience, and offered the largest church in
town for his other meetings.

His matchless eloquence was the "Open Sesame"
which secured this favor.

342 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Having written the true "Narrative of the Life oi
Frederick Douglass," he thought it discreet to put
the ocean between him and his enraged master for a
season. Accordingly he embarked for Liverpool
Aug. i6, 1845.

His book was eagerly read on board, and an in-
vitation extended to its author to deliver an address
upon the saloon-deck. This he attempted to do;
but a number of Southern slave-holders on board in-
terrupted him by giving the lie to everything he said
and shaking their fists under his nose. The captain
was at last forced to clear the deck, and even threat-
ened to put the leader of the mob in irons. An ac-
count of this suppression of free speech on the high
sea was published in the English papers and gave the
black orator an immense amount of free advertising;
so that his lecturing tour through Ireland, Scotland
and England was almost an ovation. While in Ire-
land, Father Mathew gave him a soiree, and admin-
istered to him the temperance pledge. In making a
speech in St. Patrick's Temperance Hall, Douglass
said of those who spoke of the Irish as slaves, that
"they do not sufficiently distinguish between certain
forms of oppression, and slavery. Slavery is not
what takes away any one right or property in man; it
takes away man himself, and makes him the property
of his fellow. It is what unmans man, takes him from
himself, dooms him as a degraded thing, ranks him
with the bridled horse and muzzled ox, makes him a
chattel, a marketable commodity, to be swayed by
the caprice, and sold at the will of his master."

At Belfast, Jan. 6, 1846, the local branch of the
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society presented
him with a Bible splendidly bound in gold. He re-
marked on receiving it, "I accept thankfully this
Bible; and while it shall have the best place in my

A NEW CENTURY 343

house, I trust also to give its precepts a place in my
heart."

While in London he was lionized because of his
oratorical gifts.

He took breakfast with Sir John Bowring, and
met Lord Brougham and Douglas Jerrold.

A young man from one of our Southern states was
being entertained by an English gentleman, who said,
"I want particularly to have you look at my bust of
your countryman, Mr. Douglass." "With the utmost
pleasure," he answered. "Senator Douglass is one
of our most distinguished men." What was his
amazement when he discovered that the bust was of
our hero and in black marble!

While he was in England Mrs. Ellen Richardson
collected money and bought Douglass' freedom from
Hugh Auld, and his papers were presented to him on
his return to America; but he told his English friends
in his parting address, that he had just as much right
to sell Hugh Auld as Auld had to sell him; and said
he, "If any of you are disposed to make a purchase
to-night just say the word."

Mr. Douglass began to publish the "North Star,"
at Rochester, New York, Dec. 3, 1847. It was ag-
gressive and ably edited from the first. But in order
to avoid confusion, he changed its name with the
fourth volume to "Frederick Douglass' Paper."
"For," said he, "there were I know not how many
stars in the newspaper firmament." He furnished
each member of Congress a copy of his paper, with
good results. In 1858 he started a magazine called
"Douglass' Monthly," mainly for circulating in Eng-
land. The weekly paper was merged in the "Monthly"
in August, i860.

On one occasion, Mr. Douglass received the fol-
lowing letter: "I have been informed that you had

344 A NEW NEGRO FOR

an only aaughter, and that you desire her to marry a
whight man; whereupon you give $15,000 or $20,000
dollars to any respectable whight man that would
marry her and cherish her through life. If there is
any truth in this report, P. S. let me know and
I will marry your daughter on these conditions, and
will endeavor to make myself agreeable."

To which Douglass in replying remarked, that as
a total stranger his correspondent should have given
at least one reference, and then continued: "You
date*from Auburn, and tell me to direct to Auburn,
but do not name the street. Pardon me for regard-
ing this as a suspicious circumstance. You may be an
inmate of the State Prison, or on your way there; a
fact which you see would interfere with the fulfill-
ment of your part of the proposed bargain, even if I
could fulfill the part you assign to me. You want
$15,000 or $20,000; this is a common want, and you
are not to blame for using all honorable means to
obtain it. But candor requires me to state, that if
you were in every respect a suitable person to be
bought for the purpose you name, I have not the
money to buy you. I have no objection to your com-
plexion; but there are certain little faults of gram-
mar and spelling, as well as other little points in your
letter, which compel me to regard you as a person
by education, manners, and morals, wholly unfit to
associate with my daughter in any capacity whatever.
You evidently think your white skin of great value;
I don't dispute it; it is probably the best thing about
you; yet not even that valuable quality can commend
you sufficiently to induce even so black a Negro as
myself to accept you as his son-in-law."

Can any fair-minded man read the foregoing letter
and still insist that the Negro is an inferior race.-*

When the war came on, Douglass did all he could

A NEW CENTURY 345

with tongue and pen, to have the Negroes enlisted
to help fight for their own freedom; two of his sons,
Charles, and Lewis H., afterwards Sergeant-Major,
enlisted. Mr. Douglass afterward called on Presi-
dent Lincoln, in the interest of fair treatment to
Negro soldiers. The following extract is from a
speech delivered in Philadelphia, Dec. 4, 1863:
"When I went in, the President was sitting in his
usual position, I was told, with his feet in different
parts of the room, taking it easy. As I came in and
approached him the President began to rise, and he
continued rising, until he stood over me; and reach-
ing out his hand, he said, 'Mr. Douglass, I know you;
I have read about you and Mr. Seward has told me
about you;' putting me quite at ease at once. He
told me that I had made a speech somewhere in New
York and it had got into the papers, and among other
things I had said that if I were called upon to state
what I regarded as the most disheartening feature of
our present military situation, it would not be the
various disasters experienced by our armies and
navies, on flood and field, but it would be the tardy,
hesitating, vacillating policy of the President of the
United States. And the President said to me, 'Mr.
Douglass, I have been charged with being tardy, and
vacillating, but I do not think that charge can be sus-
tained; I think it cannot be shown that when 1 have
once taken a position I have ever retreated from it.'
"I told him that he had been somewhat slow in pro-
claiming equal protection to our colored soldiers and
prisoners; and he said the country needed talking up
to that point. He hesitated in regard to it, when he
felt the country was not ready for it. He knew that
the colored man was a despised man, and that if he
at first came out with such a proclamation, all the
hatred which is poured on the head of the Negro race

346 A NEW NEGRO FOR

would be visited on his administration. He said that
there was preparatory work needed, and that this
work had now been done. And continued, 'Remem-
ber this, Mr. Douglass: Milliken's Bend, Port Hud-
son, and Fort Wagner are recent events; and these
were necessary to prepare the way for this very proc-
lamation of mine.' I thought it was reasonabl2,but
came to the conclusion that while Abraham Lincoln
will not go down to posterity as Abraham the Great,
or as Abraham the Wise, or as Abraham the Elo-
quent, although he is all three — wise, great, and
eloquent, he will go down to posterity, if the country
is saved, as Honest Abraham; and going down thus,
his name may be written anywhere in this wide world
of ours side by side with that of Washington without
disparaging the latter."

I think one of the best things Douglass ever said
was in a jubilee meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Boston,
just after Richmond was taken. Said he: "I tell you
the Negro is coming up. He is rising. Why, only
a little while ago, we were the Lazarus of the South;
the Dives of the South was the slave-holder. But
now a change has taken place. That rich man is lift-
ing up his eyes in torments down there, and seeing
Lazarus in Abraham's bosom; and he is all the time
calling on Father Abraham to send Lazarus back.
But Father Abraham says, 'If they hear not Grant
and Sherman, neither will they be persuaded though
I send Lazarus unto them. ' I say, we are way up
yonder now, no mistake."

The war over, Mr. Douglass continued to support
the Republican party, and was appointed by Presi-
dent Hayes Marshal of the District of Columbia. He
presided over the colored people's convention at
Louisville, July, 1880. In May, t 881, he was appointed
Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia.

HON. W. L. MARTIN,

Graduate of Oherlin College, a Member of the Chicago Bar,

and Member of the Illmois State Legislature

348 A NEW NEGRO FOR

When Harrison was elected President he appointed
him Minister to Hayti. And at the World's Fair
Mr. Douglass had general charge of the exhibit from
that Republic.

Fred Douglass is unquestionably America's great-
est colored man, and will go down in history as one
of her greatest orators. A gentleman who heard his
great oration on Lincoln at the Rochester Court-
bouse, said: "I have heard Webster and Clay in their
best moments, Channing and Beecher in their high-
est inspirations; I never heard truer eloquence. I
never saw profounder impression."

Colonel F. W.Higginson said of Douglass: "I have
hardly heard his equal in grasp upon an audience,
in dramatic presentation, in striking at the pith of an
ethical question and in single illustrations and
images."

Most of Frederick Douglass' public life was spent
at a period which tried men's souls and tended to
produce great orators; but he showed that he was
more than an orator; he was a statesman of sound
judgment, and was almost invariably right. Gar-
rison claimed that the constitution was pro-slavery,
and even favored secession and disunion as a means
c.f putting down slavery. But Douglass maintained
that the constitution, if rightly interpreted, was em-
phatically anti-slavery. And he rightly favored fight-
ing for emancipation under the constitution and the
stars and stripes. He also favored arming the strong
black hand as well as the white, and this was the
very policy which proved a success.

n. ToussAiNT L'Ouverture: — Thesubject of this
sketch was born about the year 1745, on what was
called the Breda estate, near the town of Cape Hay-
tien, Hayti. His full name was Francois Dominique
Toussaint. He earned the surname L'Ouverture be-

A NEW CENTURY 349

cause of his great prowess in battle. An admiring
Frenchman said of him,"Cet homme fait I'ouverture"--
"This man makes an opening everywere." After this
his soldiers called him L'Ouverture, "the opening."

Toussaint showed such marked intelligence, and
purity of conduct, as to give him great influence over
his fellow slaves, and attracted the attention of the
manager of the plantation, M. Bayou de Libertas,
who taught him reading, writing and arithmetic.
This was a great accomplishment, when we consider
that only one slave in ten thousand possessed these
elements of knowledge. His master also made him
postilion, a position which gave him advantage over
the plantation hands.

When the insurrection took place in 179 1 Toussaint
was urged to join them, but he declined until he had
aided his benefactor M. Bayou, and his family on
board a ship to escape to Baltimore.

St. Domingo was a bone of contention between
the Spanish and French. Finding the latter weak-
ened by being divided into opposing factions of Re-
publicans and Bourbon Loyalists, the Spanish deter-
mined to seize the whole island. In their extremity
the French invited the English of Jamaica to come
to their rehef. At first the Governor of Jamaica sent
them a few hundred soldiers; afterwards, the English
government sent General Maitland, who landed with
four thousand troops and gained great success.

The French Governor now saw he had as much
to fear from his EngHsh allies as his Spanish foes,
for England had determined to seize the island for
her own.

In his extremity, the Governor thought of the niu-
lattoes who had assisted him in putting down an in-
surrection of the whites five years before. But he had
torfeited his solemn oath to grant them civil priv-

350 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ileges, and they would not be deceived a second time.

He now thought of the enslaved blacks, and sent
a deputation to Toussaint, who even then had great
influence with his people. But he was a diplomatist,
and asked the envoys, "Where are your credentials?"

"We have none," was the answer. "Then," said
he, "I will have nothing to do with you." The en-
voys next went to Francois and Biassou, two other
slave leaders of considerable influence, and said, "Arm,
assist the government to put down the Spanish on
one side, the English on the other."

Having been previously advised by Toussaint, who,
like Cromwell, preferred not to be in the lead at first,
they placed themselves at the head of fifteen thou-
sand blacks, who had been supplied with arms from
the government arsenal. This was in August, 1791.

With the help of this army of blacks, Blanchelande
gained the ascendency over the combined Spanish
and English, and was reinstated as Governor. Hav-
ing accomplished this, the black leaders, speaking for
their people, said to the Governor they had created,
"Now grant us gradual emancipation, give us one
day in seven; give us one day's labor; we will buy
another and with the two buy a third, and so even-
tually be free." Surely this was a very mild request,
coming from men who had saved his government from
overthrow. But the same Blanchelande, who was
false to his mulatto benefactors, proved doubly false
to his black allies. He sneeringly replied, "Disarm!
Disperse !" But they stood their ground, and replied,
"The right hand that has saved you, the right hand
that has saved the island for the Bourbons, may per-
chance clutch some of our own rights." Thus began
the insurrection. The Blacks refused to disband or
lay down their arms, as they had been mortified by
two insults. First, their commissioners sent to meet

A NEW CENTURY 351

the French Committee were ignominiously dismissed;
after this Francois, their general, being summoned to
a second conference, went to it on horseback, at-
tended by two officers. Here he met a young French
lieutenant, who had known him as a slave, who see-
ing him in the uniform of an officer, became enraged
and struck him a heavy blow with his riding-whip^
across the shoulders. The Negro troops did not hear
of the insult to their commander for twenty-four
hours. When they did, the cry was heard, "Death
to every white man!" They soon had fifteen hundred
white prisoners ranged in front of the camp, intend-
ing to shoot them. Just at this critical time, Tous-
saint reached the camp, having been offered the
position as second in command. Mounting a hill in
front of the army, he gained their attention and said
in a loud voice heard by all: "Brothers, this blood
will not wipe out the insult to our chief; only the
blood in yonder French camp can wipe it out. To
shed that is courage; to shed this is cowardice, and
cruelty besides." They heard his words and the lives
of fifteen hundred men were saved. Shortly after-
wards he became the commander-in-chief of the
black army, and in seven years' time accomplished
the following results:

He conquered the Spanish, even in their own cities,
over which he caused the French banner to wave; he
fought pitched battles with the English general, Mait-
land, whom he defeated, with great slaughter, but
afterwards he permitted him to retreat with the rem-
nant of his army to Jamaica; he subdued the mulat-
toes to his sway, and when the French army turned
on their general, Loveaux, and put him in chains,
Toussaint defeated them, rescued Loveaux from
prison and placed him at the head of his army. The
French, in their gratitude,now named him General-in-

352 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Chief of the armies of St. Domingo. From this to the
position of governor of the island was for Toussaint
but a short step.

Under his government the island continued happy
and prosperous.

In the year 1800 he appointed a committee of nine
to draft a constitution for him. Out of this number
there were eight white proprietors, and one mulatto,
not a single Negro or soldier in the number. With
the instinct of a true statesman he said to this com-
mittee: "Put at the head of the chapter of commerce
that the ports of St. Domingo are open to the trade
of the world." Catholic as he was, he tock his place
beside Roger Williams in securing to all, religious
liberty, for he said to the committee: "Make it the
first line of my constitution that I know no difference
between religious beliefs."

This constitution worked admirably during the
time it was tried, even if it did make Toussaint Pres-
ident for life with the power to choose his successor.
The commerce of the world visited St. Domingo, her
coffers were filled, and her plantations, worked by
free labor, blossomed like the rose.

The same year in which the constitution was
drafted, Toussaint made the following proclamation:
"Sons of St. Domingo, come home; we never meant
to take your houses and your lands. The Negro only
asked that liberty which God gave him. Your houses
wait for you, your lands are ready." And the exiled
planters returned from Baltimore and New Orleans,
irom Madrid and Paris, and lived contentedly on their
estates, protected by the pledged word of this black
ruler, which was never broken. Then turning to his
armies — in their rags and poverty, he said: "Go back
and work on these estates you have conquered; for
an empire can be founded only on order and industry,
and you can learn thase virtues nnlv there/'

A NEW CENTURY 353

Within a week his army was transformed into

laborers.

Thus did Toussaint establish what bid fair to be

the best governed republic on earth. But this very
fact was an eyesore to Napoleon Bonaparte, who was
about to seize the crown of France. Moreover, Tous-
saint had written Napoleon a letter in which occured
this language, "The first of the blacks, to the first of
the whites." And when the satirists of Paris spoke
of Toussaint as the "Black Napoleon,'' it enraged
Bonaparte more than the defeat of his army by this
Negro chieftain.

So Napoleon called a council and asked, "What
shall I do with St. Domingo.?" The slave-holders
present said, "Give it to us." But a letter was read
Uom Colonel Vincent, formerly private secretary to
Toussaint, and his answer was: "Sire, leave it alone;
It is the happiest spot in your dominions; God raised
this man to govern, races melt under his hand. He
has saved you this island; for I know of my own
knowledge that, when the Republic could not have
lifted a finger to prevent it, George III. offered him
any title and any revenue if he would hold the island
under the British crown. He refused and saved it
for France." But Napoleon had already decided
what to do before calling the council. He had sixty
thousand idle republican soldiers, and he dare not
seize the crown until they were sent to a distant realm,
or the ocean rolled between him and them. Accord-
ingly in an evil hour he put thirty thousand of them
under the command of his brother-in-law, Leclerc,and
sent them to Hayti, with instructions to overthrow
the Republic, bring Toussaint a prisoner to France,
and re-establish slavery on the island.

Toussaint, in company with his friend Christopher,
rode on horseback to the eastern extremity of the

354 ^ NEW NEGRO FOR

island, where from a high promontory he saw the ap-
proaching fleet.

Counting the ships, he found they numbered sixty,
each crowded with the best drilled, best armed soldiers
in all Europe. He then exclaimed to Christopher:
''All France has come to Hayti; they can only come
to make us slaves; and we are lost!" He now de-
plored his misplaced confidence in Napoleon which
caused him to disband his army. But he resolved to
give the invaders a warm reception and sell his liberty
and that of his people as dearly as possible. Ac-
cordingly he issued the following proclamation:

"My children, France comes to make us slaves;
God gave us liberty; France has no right to take it
away. Burn the cities, destroy the harvests, poison
the wells, show the white man the hell he comes to
make;" and they obeyed him.

Marching into battle singing the Marseillaise Hymn,
the Negro soldiers under such a leader were invin-
cible, and at first routed the invading army in every
encounter.

Defeated in battle, Leclerc resorted to lying, and
issued this proclamation:

"We do not com.e to make you slaves; this man
Toussaint tells you lies; join us and you shall have
the rights you claim." Deceived by these lying
promises, all the officers laid down their arms except
Pierre, Toussaint's brother, Christopher and Dessal-
ines; finally these, too, went over to the enemy, and
the great leader was left alone, with a remnant of his
army. He now sent the following message to Le-
clerc. "I will submit. I could continue the strug-
gle for years, — could prevent a single Frenchman
from safely quitting yoLr camp. But I hate blood.
I have fought only for the liberty gf my race.
Guarantee that, I will submit and come in." He took

A NEW CENTURY 355

the oath to be a true citizen, and the French general
swore on the same crucifix, that the island should be
free, and that Toussaint should be faithfully pro-
tected. But the white man never intended to keep
that sacred oath, as all the circumstances show. Le-
clerc was struck by the contrast between his own
splendidly equipped soldiers and the ragged followers
of the black commander, whose arms were in keeping
with their clothes, and he said to him,**L'Ouverture,
had you continued the war, where could you have
got arms?" "I would have taken yours," was the
Spartan-like answer.

The story is soon told. Relying upon the pledges of
Leclerc, Toussaint, who never broke his word to
friend or foe, retired to his plantation, only to be
treacherously seized in the night, and conveyed on
board a man of war.bound for France. As he caught
the last glimpse of his beloved Hayti,he remarked to
the captain, "You think you have rooted up the tree
of liberty, but I am only a branch; I have planted
the tree so deep that all France can never root it
up."

He was taken to Paris, and incarcerated in prison.
Here the great (?) Napoleon sent Caffarelli, one of
his secretaries, to interrogate him concerning supposed
buried treasures. After listening a few minutes he
answers, "Young man, it is true I have lost treasures,
but they are not such as you come to seek."

Toussaint was now sent as a prisoner to the Chat-
eaux de Joux and confined in a stone dungeon twelve
by twelve feet, with a single narrow window, looking
out on Switzerland's mountains of snow. It is said
that ice covered the floor in winter, and dampness in
summer. From this dungeon tomb he wrote the
following letter to Napoleon: — "Sire, I am a French
citizen. I never broke a law. By the grace of God,

356 A NEW NEGRO FOR

I have saved for you the best island of your realm.
Sire, of your mercy grant me justice."

This letter was never answered. And when Na-
poleon learned that five francs a day were allowed
him for food and fuel, he cut it down to three. Still
the iron constitution did not yield to slow assassina-
tion fast enough, and the jailer was ordered to go
into Switzerland with the keys of the dungeon, and
remained four days. When he returned the Black
Prince was dead.

This sad event was in April of 1803, and when it
became known raised a cry of horror, and indignation
against Napoleon, who would thus destroy in this bar-
barous manner one of the noblest and bravest of the
African race. But God is just, and twelve years
afterward the imperial assassin was a closely guarded
prisoner on the rocky island of St. Helena, whining
his life avv'ay, saying "he did not live, he simply ex-
isted."

In a few years he died of disappointment and a
broken heart; and nothing he accomplished while
living exists. Even the monarchy for which he fought
so many battles, has been superseded by a republic.

Contrast this with the fact, that while no monument
marks the resting place of Toussaint, thus cruelly mur-
dered, still the republic he founded exists to-day as
a memorial of his valor and statesmanship.

It is significant, too, that the last claimant of the
Bonaparte dynasty, Prince Napoleon, was killed by
the Zulus in Africa, the very people from which
Toussaint sprang, the blood of whose kings flowed in
his veins.

"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they
grind exceeding small. Though with patience he
stands waiting, wiih exactness grinds he all."

III. Phillis Wheatley: — This remarkable colored

A NEW CENTURY 357

girl was brought, in 1 761. on a slave ship from
Africa to the Boston slave market, and purchased by
Mrs. John Wheatley.a benevolent and cultured lady.
When bought she was naked except a piece of dirty
carpet around her loins. She was thin and sick from
a rough, tedious sea voyage, for her constitution was
delicate at best. Impressed by her intelligent coun-
tenance and modest demeanor, she was selected from
a large number of slaves.

It was the intention at first to teach her the duties
of a house servant; but clean clotning and good food
wrought such a change for the better, that her mis-
tress decided to instruct her in letters. She was only
eight years old and proved a very apt pupil; in less
than a year and a half she had mastered the English
language sufficiently well to read the most difficult
portions of the Bible. She also mastered writing with
equal ease, and in four years from the time she was
taken out of the slave market could carry on an in-
teresting correspondence upon many topics. Her
amiable disposition and budding intellect attracted
the attention of the refined and cultured of Boston,
who gave her encouragement by lending her books
and conversing with her upon literary subjects.
Having acquired a fairly good English education,
she began the study of Latin, and soon became so
proficient that she made an admirable translation of
one of Ovid's tales, which was published in Boston
and republished in England, where it was heartily
commended by many of the reviews.

When asked what she remembered about her home
in Africa she replied, "Nothing except the fact that
every morning my mother poured out water before
the rising sun." She could not help but contrast
this with'' the worship of the true and only living God,
andthis child of Africa became deeply pious. In 1770.

358 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

at the age of sixteen, she was happily converted and
united with the congregation at the "Old South Meet-
inghouse." Four years afterwards, her master man-
umitted her. But the New England climate was too
severe for one of her studious and sedentary habits,
with delicate constitution, and she began to go into
a decline. At the suggestion of eminent physicians,
her adopted mother, for such she proved herself to
be, sent her on a voyage to England, in care of her
son, who wasgoing on business. Some years previous
to this Phillis had developed a great talent for poetry,
which she had cultivated to the utmost. Indeed her
reputation was well established, and had preceded
her to England. Her rare conversational powers
and charming demeanor took London by stcrm.

Soon the nobility, thoughtful people, and press,
united in extolling the name of Phillis Wheatley, the
African poetess.

Her poems were first published in Boston in 1770.
But her admiring friends prevailed upon her to bring
out a second and better edition in London in 1773.
This was a small octavo volum.e of about one hun-
dred and twenty pages, comprising thirty-nine pieces.
It was dedicated to the Countess of Huntingdon, and
contained a picture of the poetess, and a letter of
recommendation signed by the governor and lieuten-
ant-governor of Massachusetts, with many other re-
liable citizens of Boston, including her master; estab-
Hshing the fact that all the poems contained in the
book were written by Phillis. For the poems were
so excellent, strangers were disposed to question their
originality.

During Phillis' stay in England, Mrs. Wheatley
grieved herself sick about her adopted dar^ghter. She
would talk to her picture by the hour, and pointing
it out to friends, exclaim with all a mother's pride:

A NEW CENTURY 359

"See! Look at my Phillis! Does she not seem as
though she would speak to me?"

When she could endure the separation no longer,
she sent an urgent request to Phillis to return at once
to Boston. This she hastened to do and found her
kind benefactor at death's door. She was only able
to comfort her for a short time before the end came.

Mr. Wheatley and his daughter soon followed her
to the grave.

Young Mr. Wheatley made his hom.e in England;
so Phillis was alone in the "wide, wide world."

The historian Sparks informs us that "she soon
after received an offer of marriage from a respectable
colored man of Boston, named John Peters.

"In an evil hour, he was accepted; and though he
was a man of talents and information, he proved
utterly unworthy of the distinguished woman who
honored him with her alliance."

Her married life was brief and unhappy. One babe
gladdened her heart, only to die early. Having been
tenderly brought up, she naturally expected the same
treatment from her husband, but was doomed to a sad
disappointment. Peters became jealous and morose,
and subjected her to cruel treatment.

Her delicate constitution gave way, and she went
into a hasty decline, from which she died December
fifth, 1784, in the thirty-first year of her age, loved
and mourned by all who knew her.

She was certainly one of the most remarkable char-
acters in history. Her life reads more like a romance
than the statement of historical facts. From a con-
dition of nudity in a slave-ship she worked her way
up until she conquered the social caste of Boston and
London, and was dined, and praised by the cultivated
and refined of two continents.

George W. Wilhams says of her, "She addressed

36o A NEW NEGRO FOR

a poem to General Washington that pleased the old
warrior very much. We have never seen it, though
we have searched diligently."

Mr. Sparks says of it, in his Life of Washington,
"I have not been able to find among Washington's
papers this letter and poem addressed to him. They
have doubtless been lost."

Thus we see a distinguished biographer, and no
less distinguished historian, both "searched diligently
for the poem and their conclusions were that it had
"doubtless been lost." But we are glad to inform
our readers that the poem in question was "not lost,
but gone before," to the publisher; sent by Washing-
ton himself. And having obtained a copy at no little
trouble and pains, we shall give it in full, but will
first quote two letters germane to it.

"Cambridge, February 28th, 1886.

"Miss Phillis, — Your favor of the 26th of October
did not reach my hands till the middle of Decem-
ber. Time enough, you will say, to have given an
answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of impor-
tant occurrences, continually interposing to distract
the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will
apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for
seeming neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your
polite notice of me, in the elegant lines enclosed;
and however undeserving I may be of such encomium
and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a strik-
ing proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which,
and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have pub-
lished the poem, had I not been apprehensive, that
while I only meant to give the world this new in-
stance of your genius, I might have incurred the im-
putation of vanity. This and nothing else, deter-
mined me not to give it place in the public prints.

"If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near

E. J. COOPER,
Editor Colored American, Washington, D. C.

361

362 A NEW NEGRO FOR

headquarters, shall be happy to see a person so fa-
vored by the Muses, and to whom nature has been so
liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am,
with great respect, your obedient, humble servant,

"George Washington."

This is about the kind of a letter we would expect
from a man who was noble enough to emancipate his
own slaves, that they might enjoy that liberty for
which he imperiled his life.

The following letter accompanied the poem, dedi-
cated to Washington just before he took command
of the Continental army.

"General Washington, Sir: —

"I have taken the liberty to address your excellency
in the enclosed poem, and entreat your acceptance,
though I am not insensible to its inaccuracies. Your
appointment by the Continental Congress to be Gen-
eralissimo of the armies of North America, together
with the fame of your virtues, excites sensations not
easy to suppress. Your generosity, therefore, I pre-
sume, will pardon the attempt.

"Wishing your excellency all possible success in the
great cause you are so generously engaged in, I am
your excellency's most obedient, humble servant,,

"Phillis Wheatley.
"Providence, October 26, 1775."

his excellency, general WASHINGTON.

♦'Celestial choir! enthroned in realms of light,
Columbia's scenes of glorious toils I write;
While freedom's cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See Mother Earth her offspring's fate bemoan,
And nation's gaze at scenes before unknown;
See the bright beams of heaven's revolving light
Involved in sorrows and in veil of night.

A NEW CENTURY 363

The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel bind her golden hair;
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumbered charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates;
As when Eolus heaven's fair face deforms,
Enwrapped in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonished ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the resounding shore;
Or thick as leaves in Autumn's golden reign,
Such and so many moves the warrior's train.
In bright array they seek the world of war.
Where high unfurled the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough, thou knowest them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honor we demand.
The grace and glory of thy mortal band.
Famed for thy valor, for thy virtue more.
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore.
One Century scarce performed its destined round
When Gallic powers Columbia's fury found;
And, so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom's heaven-defended race.
Fixed are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia's arm prevails.
Anon, Britannia droops the pensive head.
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! cruel blindness to Columbia's state.
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.
Proceed, great chief; virtue on thy side;
Thy every action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine
With gold unfading, Washington, be thine."

IV. Sojourner Truth,— The Libyan Sibyl: — It is
not known when this remarkable woman was born,
as it was not customary to keep a record of s^^ch
trivial events as the birth of a slave-child. This much '

364 A NEW NEGRO FOR

is known, she was manumitted by an act of the legis-
lature of New York in 181 1, by which all slaves forty
years of age were liberated at once, the others in
1828, and the children on reaching their majority.

Her former name was Isabella, that of her parents,
James and Betsey, slaves of Colonel Ardinburgh,who
belonged to that class called Low Dutch; he lived in
Hurley, Ulster County, New York.

She remembered that her parents, Bomefree and
Mau-mau-Bett, after having all their children, whom
God had intended as the prop and stay of their de-
clining years, sold away from them, were emancipated
when they became old and well nigh helpless. But
this was little more than liberty to starve or perish
from cold, for they were given to understand that they
could expect no help from the very people who had
been enriched by thier unpaid toil for more than half
a century.

At nine years of age, Isabella was sold for one
hundred dollars to one John Nealy of Ulster County,
New York. She thinks her sale was connected in
some way with a flock of sheep. The trials of her
life dated from this period, or as she expressed it,
"Now the war begun." She knew nothing of the
English language, while the Nealys could not talk
Dutch. Mr. Nealy, however, could understand that
language, but neither mistress nor maid could under-
stand the language of the other. This naturally led
to frequent misunderstanding, and punishment for
poor Isabella. She was often slapped over for bringing
the wrong article to her mistress. She suffered ter-
ribly from cold, her feet becoming badly frozen. And
while they gave her plenty to eat, they also gave her
plenty of whippings; often for no other reason than
her inability to understand what she was told to do.

One Sunday morning she was sent to the bavn,

A NEW CENTURY 365

vvhere she found her master waiting for her with a
bundle of rods in his hand. Stripping her to the waist,
and tying her hands before her, he gave her the most
cruel flogging she ever received. Her flesh was deeply
lacerated, the blood streaming to the barn floor, the
scars remaining to her dying day. And she never
knew why she was so cruelly whipped.

Often afterwards she stated, "When I hear 'em tell
of whippin' women on the bare flesh, it makes my
flesh crawl, an' my very hair rise on my head! Oh
my God, what a way is this of treatin' human
bein's!" She now remembered her mother's instruc-
tion to pray to God in time of trouble, and at once
obeyed, begging God to send her father, who was
still living, and through him to provide a kinder mas-
ter.

This prayer (and indeed a// her prayers) was
promptly answered. In a short time her poor old
father came to see her. When he started away she
followed him to the gate, and unburdened her heart.

He promised to do what he could and in a short
time sent a rough but kind-hearted man, by the name
of Schriver, who purchased Isabella of her master
for one hundred and five dollars. Schriver lived
about six miles distant, and owned a large farm, but
left it unimproved, while he engaged in fishing,' and
keeping a hotel. He and his family were coarse,
ignorant, and profane, but honest, kind-hearted peo-
ple. Here Isabella was kindly treated, but learned
from their example to swear like a trooper. Her work
consisted of carrying fish, hoeing corn, bringing roots
and herbs from the woods for beers, and going on
errands to the Strand for a jug of molasses or liquor.

Naturally instead of improving in morals she retro-
graded, during the year and a half she spent there.

Her next master was John |. Dumont, to whom

366 A NEW NEGRO FOR

she was sold for sevent}^ pounds in the year i8iO.
He also lived in Ulster County, near the town of New
Paltz. She remained with him until the fall of 1827.
Mr. Dumont was a kind-hearted man, but his wife
was not accustomed to Negroes and disliked Isabella
from the first.

Mrs. Dumont employed two white girls; one of
them, named Kate, became jealous of Bell (as they
now called her for short) on account of the master's
praise, and was very overbearing towards her. Thus
she was praised and complimented by her master, who
declared she could do more than half a dozen common
people; while her mistress replied that "the reason
she accomplished so much work, was because she did
not half do it." In proof of which she called atten-
tion to the potatoes which Bell had cooked for
breakfast, and showed that they had a dingy, dirty
look; remarking, "This is a fine specimen of Bell's
work, but it is the way all her work is done." Even
the master scolded this time, and commanded her to
be more careful in the future on pain of punishment,
while Kate joined heartily in the censures, wishing
to please the mistress.

Isabella had done her best to have those potatoes
nice and clean, and was much distressed at her poor
success, and inability to account for it. In this dilem-
ma Mr. Dumont's daughter Gertrude, a kind-hearted
girl of about ten years of age, offered her sympathy
and aid. It was agreed between them that Gertrude
should be called in the morning when Bell arose, and
they would wash the potatoes thoroughly, and that
Gertrude should watch them while Bell was milk-
ing. This plan was carried out in full; but presently
Kate came into the room, requesting Gertrude to "go
to her mother;" but she kept her place in the corner,
watching closely. Presently she saw Kate pick up a

A NEW CENTURY 367

large chip covered with ashes and deliberately dash
them into the kettle. Then Gertrude cried out, "Oh,
Poppee!" (her word for father.) "Poppee! Kate has
been putting ashes in among the potatoes! I saw
her do it! Look at those that fell on the outside of
the kettle! You can now see what made the pota-
toes so dingy every morning, though Bell washed
them clean!" Gertrude soon made the fraud as pub-
lic as the censure had been. The master was prouder
of Bell than ever, while the mistress and Kate were
both deeply mortified. She tried after this vindica-
tion harder than ever to please her master, working
almcst night and day in the effort.

Some time after this a strong attachment sprung
up between Bell and a slave named Robert, belong-
ing to an English neighbor named Catlin. But the
Englishman forbade him to visit Eell, and ordered
him to take a wife from among his fellow slaves.
Still Robert continued to follow his inclination, and
make clandestine visits. One Saturday afternoon,
learning that Bell was sick, he boldly went to see
her. But Catlin and his son followed him, and as
soon as he reached the object of his affections, they
both fell upon him like madmen, cursing, and beat-
ing him over the head and face with heavy canes.
The blood spurted from his face, and they would
probably have beaten him to death had not the more
humane Dumont interfered, telling the brutal ruffians
they had beaten him already too much, they could no
longer spill human blood on his premises; he would
have "no nigger killed there."

The Catlins now took a rope and tied his hands
behind his back so tight that Mr. Dumont compelled
them to loosen it, saying that "no brute, m.uch less a
\nan, could be tied that way where he was."

Mr. Dumont also followed them home as Robert's

368 A NEW NEGRO FOR

protector, and succeeded in cooling their wrath be-
fore he left them.

Bell had witnessed the whole scene from her win-
dow, and was shocked at the cruel treatment of poor
Robert, for whom she had the warmest affection, and
whose only crime in the eyes of his master was his
love for her.

Both now became obedient chattels, each marrying
a fellow slave, if the farce of a union liable to be
annulled at the caprice of the master can be called a
marriage.

In process of time, she became the mother of five
children; and carried the youngest in her arms when
she "walked" away from Mr. Damont's house in
1827.

By the conditions of the act of the New York leg-
islature she would have been free July 4, 1828. Mr.
Dumont, in consideration of the long years of faithful
service, promised to give her free papers one year in
advance of this date. But when the time came he
backed out on the trivial plea that her hand had been
disabled during the past year, and she could not per-
form as much work as formerly. In vain did she re-
mind him of his Ovvn statement, that she did mere
work during those past years than several ordinary
slaves. Surely working night and day for long years
would more than make up for a disabled hand one
year. But as he still refused, she determined to take
the matter into her own hands, and without his con-
sent. She started one fine morning just before day-
light, her baby on one strong arm, a bundle of food
and clothing on the other. Night found her at the
home of Mr. and Mrs. Van Wagener, to whom she
had been directed by a neighbor. Here she wa^
kindly received and given employment. In a shor*-
time Dumont found her. She anticipated this and

A NEW CENTURY 3^9

resolved to settle it with him at once. As soon a&
they met, his salutation was, "Well, Bell, so you've
run away from me?" "No, I did not rzm away, I
walked away by daylight, and all because you had
promised me a year off my time." His reply was,
"You must go back with me." Her decided answer
was, "No, I won't go back with you." He said, "Well,
I shall take the child." This also was as firmly de-
nied. Mr. Isaac Van Wagener now interposed, and
bought her service for the remainder of the year for
twenty dollars. Dumont also exacted five dollars
for the baby, and then left; but not until he heard
Mr. Van Wagener tell Isabella not to call him master,
adding, "There is but one Master; and he who is your
Master is my Master." Thus ended her life as a
slave.

"Sojourner once visited Mrs. Harriet B. Stowe at
her home ; in the course of a conversation the question
was asked: —

"Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name.^^"

"No, 'deed, my name was Isabella; but when I left
the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I
wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on m.e, an' so
I w^ent to the Lord an' asked him to give me a new
name. An' the Lord give me Sojourner, because I
was to travel up an' down the land,showin' the peo-
ple their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterward
I told de Lord I wanted another name, 'cause every-
body else had two names; an' de Lord give me Truth,
because I was to declare the truth to de people."

A few years after this, she felt called of God to
labor for the salvation of souls, and the good of her
own oppressed people,

Though never able to read or write, she kept her
friends busy reading the Bible to her, and answering
her numerous letters, She had a remarkable mem-

370 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ory, learning long hymns by hearing them only once,
and could repeat many chapters in the Bible from
hearing them read a few times. Moreover she had
marvelous power with God and man, anc a natural
eloquence and repartee seldom equaled.

On one occasion she was at a Woman's Rights
Convention, where the ministers in the town turned
out, and taking issue with the ladies, by their soph-
istries, turned the pjublic sentiment against them,
leaving the ladies and their cause in utter despair,
when Sojourner stepped to the front and snatched a
victory from the jaws of defeat. Hear her: —

"Well, chil'ern, what's all dis here talkin' 'bout.?
Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped
into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, an' to have
de bes' place every whar. Nobody eber help me into
carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gives me any bes'
place (and raising herself to her full height and her
voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked),
an' ar'n't I a woman? Look at me! Look at
my arm! (And she bared her right arm to the
shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular pow-
er.) I have plowed, an' planted, an' gathered
into barns, an' no man could head me — an' ar'n't
I a woman.? I could work as much, an' eat as
much as a man when I could git it, an' bear de
lash as well — ^an' ar'n't 1 a woman.? I have born
thirteen children an' seen 'em mos' all sold off into
slavery, an when 1 cried out with a mother's grief,
none but Jesus heard — an' ar'n't I a woman.? Den
dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head — what dis dey call
it.?" "Intellect," whispered some one near. "Dat's
it, honey. What's dat got to do with woman's rights
or niggers' rights.? If my cup won't hold but a pint
an' yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to
let me have my little half-measure full?" And she

A NEW CENTURY 371

pointed her finger and sent a keen glance at the min-
ister who had made the argument. The cheering
was long and loud.

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say woman
can't have as much rights as man, cause Christ w'an'
a woman. Whar did your Christ come from?"

Rolling thunder could not have stilled that crowd
as did those- deep, wonderful tones, as she stood
there with outstretched arms and eye of fire. Rais-
ing her voice still louder, she repeated, "Whar did
your Christ come from? From God and a woman.
Man had nothingto do with him." Oh ! what a rebuke
she gave the little man!

Turning again to another objector, she took up the
defense of mother Eve, and ended by asserting that
"if de fust woman God ever made could turn the
world upside down, all 'lone, dese togedder ought
to be able to turn it back an' git it right side up agin,
an' now dey is askin' to doit, de men better let 'em."

Hundreds rushed up to shake hands, and congrat-
ulate this glorious old mother and bid her Godspeed
on her mission of 'testifyin' concernin' de wickedness
of dis 'ere people."

While Parker Pillsbury was speaking at an aboli-
tion meeting one Sunday afternoon, and criticising the
churches in regard to slavery, a furious thunderstorm
came up. A young Methodist arose, and interrupt-
ing the speaker, said he was "fearful God's judgment
was about to fall on him for daring to sit and hear
such blasphemy; that it made his hair almost rise
with terror." Here a voice was heard above the rain,
wind and thunder, saying: "Child, do not beskeered;
you are not goin' to be harmed. I don't speck God's
ever hearn tell on ye."

She got up a fine Thanksgiving dinner, for the
Battle Creek Colored Regiment, then encamped at

372 A NEW NEGRO FOR

Detroit. While soliciting for the "boys," she met one
man who refused to donate, making rude remarks
about niggers, the war, etc. Much astonished, she
asked, "Who are you?" "I am the only son of my
mother," he answered. To which she replied, "I am
glad der are no more," and passed on.

During the war she met an old Northern Demo-
cratic friend, who asked her what business she now
followed. She quickly answered, "Years ago, when
I lived in the city of New York, my occupation was
scouring brass door-knobs; but now I go about
scouring copperheads "

Just before the war she held a number of meet-
ings in Ohio, and hit the apologists of slavery
sledge-hammer blows. At one of these meetings a
man interrupted her and said, "Old woman, do you
think that your talk about slavery does any good.'*
Do you suppose people care what you say.'* Why, I
don't care any more for your talk than I do for the
bite of a flea." "Perhaps not," she answered, "but the
Lord willin', I'll keep you scratchin'."

Sojourner was an inveterate smoker. Some years
before her death, a friend asked her if she believed
the Bible. "Certainly," she answered. He contin^
ued, "The Bible says *no unclean thing can enter the
Kingdom of Heaven.' Now what can be more filthy
than the breath of a smoker.?" "Yes chile," she an-
swered, "but de Bible also say, 'He which is filthy
let him be filthy still.' Besides, when I goes to
Heaven I 'spect to leave my breff behin' me." How-
ever, she soon became convinced that it was wrong,
and discontinued it. When told it would affect her
health, she answered, "I'll quit ef I die." She did
quit and lived!

On another occasion she attended a large reform

A NEW CENTURY 373

iieeting where there were a number of speakers of
national reputation. But in spite of this fact, along-
winded person mounted the platform and worried
the people until half had left, and the others were
groaning in spirit. At last he paused to take a long
breath; when Sojourner rose up in the back part of
the audience and said, "Chile, ef de people has no-
whar to put it, what is de use.? Sit down, chile, sit
down!" He sat down.

She made a fine point on the Constitution the year
the weevil destroyed so much wheat. Said she:
"Chil'ern,! talks to God, an' God talks to me. Dis
mornin' I was walkin' out, an' I got ober de fence
mto de field. I saw de wheat a holdin' up its head
lookin' very big. I goes up an' takes holt ob it. You
believe it, dare was no wheat dare.? I says, 'God,'
(speaking the name reverently) 'what is de matter
wid dis wheat.?' an' he says to me, 'Sojourner, dare
is a little 'iucaserm\i.' Now I hears talkin' about de
Constitution, an' de rights ob man. I comes up an'
I takes holt ob dis Constitution. It looks mighty
big, an' I feels for my rights, but dar aint any dar.
Den I says, 'God, what ails dis Constitution.?' He
"^ays to me, 'Sojourner, dar is a little weasel in it.'"

Volumes were written about the Negro and the
Constitution, but here was a volume in a few sen-
tences.

Harriet Beecher Stowe says of her: "I never knew
a person who possessed so much of that subtle, con-
trolling personal power, called presence, as she.*'
Wendell Phillips stated, that he has known a few
words from her to electrify an audience. In proof of
this he cites the question she asked Frederick Doug-
lass,who was speaking in Faneuil Hall at one of the
darkest periods of the abolition struggle. Douglass
was sad, — almost ready to despair, when she lifted

374 ^ NEJV NEG'kO FOR

her long finger and asked, loud enough to be heard by
all, ''*' Frederick, is God dead?^'' That was all she
said, but it was enough.

In Calvin Fairbanks' account of Sojourner's inter-
view with President Lincoln, he states that he and a
friend were standing in the White House, when she ap-
proached the marshal and said: "I want to see Presi-
dent Lincoln." "Well, the President is busy, and you
can't see him now." "Yes, I mus' see him. If he
knew I was here, he'd come down an' see me." Fi-
nally the marshal went to the President's room with
a statement of the case, when the President said:
"I do believe she is Sojourner Truth. Bring her up
here."

Up she went, and we approached near enough to
catch glimpses and hear the words of greeting. "So-
journer Truth, how glad I am to see you!" To which
she replied, "Mr. President, when you first took your
seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I lik-
ened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into de lions'
den, an' ef de lions did not tear you to pieces, I knew
dat it would be God dat had saved you; an' I said ef
he spared me I would see you befo' de fo' years ex-
pired, an' he has done so, an' now I am here to see
you for myself. I never hearn of you befo' you was
talked of for President." He smilingly replied, "I
had heard of you many times before that." The
President purchased her book; then handing him a
photograph of herself, she said, "It's got a black face,
but a white back, an' I'd like one of yours, with a
green back." No man enjoyed a joke more than
President Lincoln; and putting his fingers into his
vest pocket, he handed her a ten dollar bill, remark-
ing: "There is my face with a gieen back."

The following is from one of her dictated letters:

"He then showed me the Bible presented to him

A NEW CENTURY 375

by the colored people of Baltimore, and it is beautiful
beyond description. After I had looked it over, I
said to him: 'This is beautiful indeed ;the colored peo-
ple have given this to the head of the government,
and that government once sanctioned laws that
'would not permit its people to learn enough to enable
them to read this book. And for what? Let them
answer who can.'

"He took my little book, and with the same hand
that signed the death warrant of slavery, he wrote as
follows:

"♦For Aunty Sojourner Truth, Oct. 29, 1864. A.
Lincoln.'"

Sojourner remained a year at Arlington Heights,
instructing the freed women in habits of economy,
neatness and order. She sometimes addressed large
numbers of them, and on one occasion exclaimed, "Be
clean! be clean! for cleanliness is godliness."

She was disgusted with the Government's policy
of giving food to the Negroes, without making any
effort to teach them to be self-supporting. Her plan
was to colonize the freedmen out West. She trav-
eled oyer many states securing signers to a petition
to Congress for her pet scheme.

Rev. George Schorb of Evanston, Illinois, heard her
lecture at Topeka, Kansas, in the interest of her col-
onization scheme. He said, "She was more than a
hundred years old, but her voice filled a large audi-
torium, and she held her audience with ease." In
fact at this period she seemed to renew her youth,
her hair turned black in streaks, second sight and
second hearing came to her, her wrinkles vanished,
and she looked younger than she did tweny years be-
fore.

She obtained thousands of signatures to her peti-
tion to Congress, and although that body took no

376 A NEW NEGRO FOR

action, her efforts gave an impetus to the exodus of
the colored people to the West, a few years after-
wards.

In reviewing her life we can but wonder what she
might not have been, had she, when young, received
kind treatment, and a thorough education. Referring
to Horace Greeley, she said, "You call him a self-made
man; well, I am a self-made woman." She certainly
was, and the world was better for her long sojourn
in it. For she went about doing good, until she
passed to her reward from Battle Creek, Michigan,
November 26, 1883.

MRS. FANNIE BARRIER V/ILLIAMS,

Member of the Chicago Woman's Club, Newspaper CoiVf-/

spondent and Author.

378

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CLUB MOVEMENT AMONG COLORED
WOMEN OF AMERICA.

Afro-American women of the United States have
never had the benefit of a discriminating judgment
concerning their worth as women made up of the
good and bad of human nature. What they have
been made to be and not what they are, seldom
enters into the best or worst opinion concerning
them.

In studying the status of Afro-American women
as revealed in their club organizations, it ought to
be borne in mind that such social differentiations
as ''women's interests, children's interests, and
men's interests" that are so finely worked out in
the social development of the more favored races
are but recent recognitions in the progressive life
of the negro race. Such speciaHzing had no eco-
nomic value in slavery days, and the degrading
habit of regarding the negro race as an unclassified
people has not yet wholly faded into a memory.

The negro as an ''alien" race, as a "problem," as
an "industrial factor," as "ex-slaves," as "ignor-
ant" etc., are well known and instantly recognized;
but colored women as mothers, as home-makers,
as the center and source of the social life of the
race have received little or no attention. These
women have been left to grope their way unassisted
toward a realization of those domestic virtues,
moral impulses and standards of family and social

379

MRS. HAYDEE CAMPBELL,
The Popular Kindergarten Directress, of St. Louis.

380

MISS HELEN ABBOTT,
Noted Kindergarten Teacher in St. Louis, Mo.

381

382 A NEW NEGRO FOR

life that are the badges of race respectability. They
have had no special teachers to instruct them. No
conventions of distinguished women of the more
favored race have met to consider their peculiar
needs. There has been no fixed pubHc opinion
to which they could appeal; no protection against
the hbelous attacks upon their characters, and no
chivalry generous enough to guarantee their safety
against man's inhumanity to woman. Certain it is
that colored women have been the least known,
and the most ill-favored class of women in this
country.

Thirty-five years ago they were unsocialized, un-
classed and unrecognized as either maids or ma-
trons. They w^re simply women whose character
and personality excited no interest. If within
thirty-five years they have become sufficiently im-
portant to be studied apart from the general race
problem and have come to be recognized as an
integral part of the general w^omanhood of Amer-
ican civilization, that fact is a gratifying evidence
of real progress.

In considering the social advancement of these
women, it is important to keep in mind the point
from which progress began, and the fact that they
have been mainly self-taught in all those precious
things that make for social order, purity and char-
acter. They have gradually become conscious of
the fact that progress includes a great deal more
than what is generally meant by the terms culture,
education and contact.

The club movement among colored women
reaches into the sub-social condition of the entire
race. Among white v/omen clubs mean the for-

A NEW CENTURY 383

ward movement of the best women in the interest
of the best womanhood. Among colored women
the club is the effort of the few competent in be-
half of the many incompetent; that is to say that
the club is only one of many means for the social
uplift of a race. Among white women the club is
the onward movement of the already uplifted.

The consciousness of being fully free has not yet
come to the great masses of the colored women in
this country. The emancipation of the mind and
spirit of the race could not be accomplished by leg-
islation. More time, more patience, more suffer-
ing and more charity are still needed to complete
the work of emancipation.

The training which first enabled colored women
to organize and successfully carry on club work
was originally obtained in church work. These
churches have been and still are the great prepara-
tory schools in which the primary lessons of social
order, mutual trustfulness and united effort have
been taught. The churches have been sustained,
enlarged and beautified principally through the or-
ganized efforts of their women members. The
meaning of unity of effort for the common good,
the development of social sympathies grew into
woman's consciousness through the privileges of
church work.

Still another school of preparation for colored
women has been their secret societies. "The ritual
of these secret societies is not without a certain so-
cial value." They demand a higher order of intel-
ligence than is required for church membership.
Care for the sick, provisions for the decent burial
of the indigent dead, the care for orphans and the

384 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

enlarging sense of sisterhood all contributed to the
development of the very conditions of heart that
qualify women for the more inclusive work of those
social reforms that are the aim of women's clubs.
The churches and secret societies have helped to
make colored women acquainted with the general
social condition of the race and the possibilities
of social improvement.

With this training the more intelligent women
of the race could not fail to follow the example and
be inspired by the larger club movement of the
white women. The need of social reconstruction be-
came more and more apparent as they studied the
results of women's organizations. Better homes,
better schools, better protection for girls of scant
home training, better sanitary conditions, better
opportunities for competent young women to gain
employment, and the need of being better known
to the American people appealed to the conscience
of progressive colored women from many com-
munities.

The clubs and leagues organized among colored
women have all been more or less in direct response
to these appeals. Seriousness of purpose has thus
been the main characteristic of all these organiza-
tions. W^hile the National Federation of Wom-
an's Clubs has served as a guide and inspiration to
colored women, the club movement among them
is something deeper than a mere imitation of white
women. It is nothing less than the organized
anxiety of women who have become intelligent
enough to recognize their own low social condi-
tion and strong enough to initiate the forces of
reform.

MRS. ANNA J. COOPER,
'eacher of Latin in the Washington High School, and Au-
thor of the "Voice From the South."

3§5

386 A NEW NEGRO FOR

The club movement as a race influence among
the colored women of the country may be fittingly
said to date from July, 1895, when the first national
conference of colored women was held in Boston,
Mass. Prior to this time there were a number of
strong clubs in some of the larger cities of the
country, but they were not affiliated and the larger
idea of effecting the social regeneration of the race
was scarcely conceived of.

Among the earlier clubs the Woman's League
of Washington, D. C, organized in 1892, and the
Woman's Era Club of Boston, organized in Janu-
ary, 1893, were and are still the most thorough
and influential organizations of the kind in the
country.

The kind of work carried on by the Washington
League since its organization is best indicated by
its standing committees, as follows:

Committee on Education.
Committee on Industries.
Committee on Mending and Sewing.
Committee on Free Class Instruction.
Committee on Day Nursery.
Committee on Building Fund.

These various activities include sewung schools,
kindergartens, well-conducted night schools, and
mother's meetings, all of which have been devel-
oped and made a prominent part of the educational
and social forces of the colored people of the capi-
tal. The league has made itself the recognized
champion of every cause in which colored women

A NEW CENTURY 3^7

and children have any special interests in the Dis-
trict of Columbia.

The league is also especially strong in the per-
sonnel of its membership, being made up largely
of teachers, many of whom are recognized as
among the most cultured and influential women
of the negro race in this country.

Mrs. Helen Cook, of Washington, was the first
president elected by the league, and still holds that
position. Mrs. Cook belongs to one of the oldest
and best-established colored families in the coun-
try. She has had all the advantages of culture,
contact, and experience to make her an ideal leader
of the leading woman's organization of the colored

race. . .

The Woman's League claims to have origmated
the idea of a national organization of colored wom-
en's clubs. In its annual report for 1895 there
occurs the following language:

^The idea of national organization has been em-
bodied in the Woman's League of Washington
from its formation. It existed fully developed m
the minds of the original members even before
they united themselves into an association which
has national union for its central thought, its inspir-
ing motive, its avowed purpose— its very reason for

being." . .

Having assumed a national character by gaming
the affiliations of such clubs as the Kansas City
League, the Denver League, and associations m
Virginia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, the
Washington League w^as admitted into the mem-
bership of the National Council of Women of the
United States.

MISS ANNA JONES,

Teacher in Kansas City High School; is an Alumnus of the

University of Michigan, a Brilliant Linguist

and a Most Successful Teacher.

388

MISS SARAH A. BLOCKER,

Principal of Normal Department of Florida Baptist College,

Jacksonville, Fla.

389

390 A NEW NEGRO FOR

The league is very tenacious of its name and
claim as the originator of the idea of nationalizing
the colored women's clubs of America, but its
claim has always been challenged with more or less
spirit by some of the clubs composing the National
Association.

The New Era Club of Boston was organized in
the month of February, 1893. The desire of the cul-
tured and public-spirited colored women of that city
to do something in the way of promoting a more
favorable public opinion in behalf of the negro race
was the immediate incentive to this organization.
The club began its work of agitation by collecting
data and issuing leaflets and tracts containing well-
edited matter in reference to Afro-American prog-
ress. Its most conspicuous w^ork has been the
publication of the Woman's Era, the first newspa-
per ever published by colored women in this coun-
try. This paper gained a. wide circulation and did
more than any other single agency to nationalize
the club idea among the colored women of the
country. The New Era Club has sustained its
reputation as the most representative organization
of colored people in New England. It has taken
the initiative in many reforms and helpful move-
ments that have had a wide influence on race de-
velopment. This club has been especially useful
and influential in all local affairs that in any way
effect the colored people. Deserving young men
and women struggling to obtain an education, and
defenseless young women in distress have always
been able to find substantial assistance in the New
Era Club.

This Boston organization embraces a member-

MRS. JOSEPHINE ST. PIERRE RUFFIN,
Prominent Woman of Boston, Leader of the Club Move-
ment Among Colored Women.

392 A NEW NEGRO FOR

ship of about one hundred women, many of whom
are prominent in the ranks of New England's
strongest women.

Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin has been the
president of the Era Club all the time since its or-
ganization. She is an active member in many of
the influential women's organizations in Massa-
chusetts. She is a woman of rare force of charac-
ter, mental alertness and of generous impulses.
She has played a leading part in every movement
that has tended to the emancipation of colored
women from the thraldom of past conditions. Her
husband, the late Judge Ruffin, held the first posi-
tion of a judicial character ever held by a colored
man in New England.

These two clubs, located respectively in Wash-
ington and Boston, were worthy beginnings of the
many local efforts that were destined to grow and
spread until there should be such a thing in the
United States as a national uprising of the colored
women of the country pledged to the serious work
of a social reconstruction of the negro race.

But these two clubs were not the only examples
of the colored woman's capacity for organization.
The following clubs were thoroughly organized
and actively engaged in the work of reform con-
temporaneously with the clubs of Boston and
Washington:

The Harper Woman's Club of Jefferson City,
Mo., was formed in 1890 and had established a
training school for instruction in sewing; a temper-
ance department and mothers' meetings were also
carried on. The Loyal Union of Brooklyn and
New York was organized in December, 1892. It

A NEW CENTURY 393

had a membership of seventy-five women and was
engaged largely in agitating for better schools and
better opportunities for young women seeking
honorable employment; the I. B. W. Club of Chi-
cago, 111., organized in 1893; the Woman's Club
of Omaha, Neb., organized February, 1895; the
Belle Phoebe League of Pittsburg, Pa., organized
November, 1894; the Woman's League of Den-
ver; the Phyllis Wheatley Club of New Orleans;
the Sojourner Club of Providence, R. L, and the
Woman's Mutual Improvement Club of Knoxville,
Tenn., organized in 1894.

It will thus be seen that from 1890 to 1895 the
character of Afro-American womanhood began to
assert itself in definite purposes and efforts in club
work. Many of these clubs came into being all
unconscious of the influences of the larger club
movement among white women. The incentive in
most cases was quite simple and direct. How to
help and- protect some defenseless and tempted
young woman; how to aid some poor boy to com-
plete a much-coveted education; how to lengthen
the short school term in some impoverished school
district; how to instruct and interest deficient
mothers in the difficulties of child training are
some of the motives that led to the formation of
the great majority of these clubs. These were the *
first out-reachings of sympathy and fellowship felt
by women whose lives had been narrowed by the
petty concerns of the struggle for existence and
removed by human cruelty from all the harmonies
of freedom, love and aspirations.

Many of these organizations so humble in their
beginnings and meager in membership clearly

MISS LULULOVE,
Prominent Teacher of Physical Culture in the Public Schoo
of Washington, D. C.

394

MISS LUTIE A. LYTLE,
Teacher Law Department Central Tennessee College,
ville, Tenn.

Nash-

395

396 A NEW NEGRO FOR

needed behind them the force and favor of some
larger sanction to save them from timidity and
pettiness of eftort. Many of them clearly needed
the inspirations, the wider vision and supporting
strength that come from a national unity. The
club in Mississippi could have a better understand-
ing of its own possibilities by feeUng the kinship
of the club in New England or Chicago, and the
womanhood sympathy of these northern clubs
must remain narrow and inefificient if isolated in in-
terest from the self-emancipating struggles of
southern clubs.

As already noted some of the more progressive
clubs had already conceived the idea of a National
organization. The Woman's Era journal of
Boston began to agitate the matter in the sum-
mer of 1894, and requested the clubs to express
themselves through its columns on the question
of holding a National convention. Colored women
everywhere were quick to see the possible benefits
to be derived from a National conference of repre-
sentative women. It was everywhere believed that
such a convention, conducted with decorum, and
along the lines of serious purpose might help in a
decided manner to change public opinion con-
cerning the character and worth of colored women.
This agitation had the effect of committing most
of the clubs to the proposal for a call in the sum-
mer of 1895. While public-spirited Afro- American
women everywhere were thus aroused to this larger
vision in plans for race amelioration, there occurred
an incident of aggravation that swept away all
timidity and doubt as to the necessity of a National
conference. Some obscure editor in a Missouri

A NEW CENTURY 397

town sought to gain notoriety by publishing a
Hbelous article in which the colored women of the
country were described as having no sense of virtue
and altogether without character. The article in
question was in the form of an open letter addressed
to Miss Florence Belgarnie of England, who had
manifested a kindly interest in behalf of the Ameri-
can negro as a result of Miss Ida B. Wells' agita-
tion. This letter is too foul for reprint, but the
effect of its publication stirred the intelligent col-
ored women of America as nothing else had ever
done. The letter, in spite of its wanton meanness,
was not without some value in showing to what
extent the sensitiveness of colored women had
grown. Twenty years prior to this time a similar
publication w^ould scarcely have been noticed, be-
yond the small circles of the few who could read,
and were public-spirited. In 1895 this open and
vulgar attack on the character of a w^hole race of
women was instantly and vehemently resented, in
every possible way, by a whole race of women con-
scious of being slandered. Mass meetings were
held in every part of the country to denounce the
editor and refute the charges.

The calling of a National convention of colored
women w^as hastened by this coarse assault upon
their character. The Woman's Era Club of Bos-
ton took the initiative in concentrating the wide-
spread anxiety to do something large and effective,
by calling a National conference of representative
colored women. The conference was appointed to
meet in Berkeley Hall, Boston, for a three days'
session, July 29, 30 and 31, 1895.

In pursuance to this call the 29th day of July,

MARY C JACKSON,

Assistant Principal Haines' Normal and Industrial School,

Augusta, Ga.

398

MRS. HENRIETTA M. ARCHER,

Principal of the Department of Latin and IMusic in A. & M

College, Normal, Ala., and Associate with the

National Colored Woman's Association.

399

400 A NEW NEGRO FOR

1895, witnessed in Berkeley Hall the first National
convention of colored women ever held in America.
About one hundred delegates were present from
ten States and representatives of about twenty-five
different clubs.

The convention afforded a fine exhibition of cap-
able women. There was nothing amateurish, un-
certain or timid in the proceedings. Every subject
of peculiar interest to colored women was discussed
and acted upon as if by women disciplined in think-
ing out large and serious problems. The following
nam^ed women were elected as officers of the con-
ference:

Mrs. Josephine St. P. Ruf!in, president; vice-
presidents, Mrs. Helen Cook, of Washington, and
Mrs. Booker T. Washington; secretary, Miss E)iza
Carter.

The sanity of these colored women in their first
National association was shown in the fact that but
little time was spent in complaints and fault-find-
ing about conditions that were inevitable. Almost
for the first time in the history of negro gather-
ings, this Boston conference frankly studied the
status of their own race and pointed out their own
shortcomings. They set for themselves large and
serious tasks in suggestions of plans and work to
redeem the unredeemed among them The con-
vention did credit to itself by sending iar and wide
a warning note that the race must begm to help
itself to live better, strive for a higher standard of
social purity, to exercise a more helpful sympathy
with the many of the race who are without guides
and enlightenment in the ways of social righteous-
ness.

A NEW CENTURY 401

Of course the Missouri editor was roundly scored
in resolutions that lacked nothing of the elements
of resentment, but the slanderous article against
colored women that was the immediate incentive
to the calling of the conference, became of the
least importance when the women came together
and realized the responsibility of larger considera-
tions. They very soon felt that a National con-
vention of responsible women w^ould be a misplace-
ment of moral force, if it merely exhausted itself
in replying to a slanderous publication. The con-
vention, therefore, easily shaped itself toward the
consideration of themes and policies more in keep-
ing with its responsibilities to the thousands of
women and interests represented.

The chief work of the convention was the for-
mation of National organization. The name
adopted was "The National Association of Colored
Women." The first officers of the National asso-
ciation were as follows:

The importance of this Boston conference to the
club movement among colored women can scarcely
be overestimated. The bracing effect of its vigor-
ous proceedings and stirring addresses to the pub-
lic gave a certain inspiration to the women
throughout the whole country. The clubs that
already existed became stronger and more positive
and aggressive in their helpful work.

The National association has steadily grown in
power and influence as an organized body, com-
posed of the best moral and social forces of the
negro race. It has held three National conven-
tions since its organization, in 1895: At Washing-
ton, D. C, in 1896; Nashville, Tenn., in 1897; and

402 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

Chicago, in 1899. At the Chicago convention one
hundred and fifty delegates were present, repre-
senting clubs from thirty States of the Union. The
growing importance of the National organization
was evidenced by the generous notices and edi-
torial comments in the press of the country. Fra-
ternal greetings w^ere extended to the Chicago
convention from many of the prominent white
clubs of the city. It is not too much to say that
no National convention of colored people held in
the country ever made such a deep impression upon
the public and told a more thrilling story of the
social progress of the race than the Chicago con-
vention. The interest awakened in colored women,
and their peculiar interests, was evidenced in many
ways. The National association has made it pos-
sible for many bright colored women to enjoy the
fellowship and helpfulness of many of the best or-
ganizations of American women. It has certainly
helped to emancipate the white women from the
fear and uncertainty of contact or association with
women of the darker race. In other words the
National Association of Colored Women's Clubs
is helping to give respect and character to a race
of women who had no place in the classification of
progressive womanhood in America. The terms
good and bad, bright, and dull, plain and beautiful
are now as applicable to colored women as to
women of other races. There has been created
such a thing as public faith in the sustained virtue
and social standards of the women who have spoken
and acted so well in these representative organiza-
tions. The National body has also been felt in
giving a new importance and a larger relationship

MRS. JOHN R. FRANCIS,
Member of the Board of Trustees Public Schools, Wash-
ington, D. C.

403

404 A NEW NEGRO FOR

to the purposes and activities of local clubs
throughout the country. Colored women every-
where in this club work began to feel themselves
included in a wider and better world than their
immediate neighborhood. Women who have
always lived and breathed the air of ample freedom
and whose range of vision has been world-wide,
will scarcely know what it means for women whose
lives have been confined and dependent to feel the
first consciousness of a relationship to the great
social forces that include whole nationalities in the
sweep of their influences. To feel that you are
something better than a slave, or a descendant of
an ex-slave, to feel that you are a unit in the wom-
anhood of a great nation and a great civilization, is
the beginning of self-respect and the respect of
your race. The National Association of Colored
Women's Clubs has certainly meant all this and
much more to the women of the ransomed race in
the United States.

The National association has also been useful to
an important extent in creating what may be called
a race public opinion. When the local clubs of
the many States became nationalized, it became
possible to reach the whole people with questions
and interests that concerned the whole race. For
example, when the National association interested
itself in studying such problems as the Convict
Lease System of the Southern States, or the neces-
sity of kindergartens, or the evils of the one-room
cabin, it was possible to unite and interest the intel-
ligent forces of the entire race. On these and other
questions it has become possible to get the co-
operation of the colored people in Mississippi and

'A NEW CENTURY 405

Minnesota and of New York and Florida. Such
co-operation is new and belongs to the new order
of things brought about by nationalized efforts.

Through the united voice of the representative
colored women of the country the interests of the
race are heard by the American women wath more
effect than they were in other days. There is cer-
tainly more power to demand respect and righteous
treatment since it has become possible to organize
the best forces of all the race for such demands.

The influence of the National association has
been especially felt in the rapid increase of women's
clubs throughout the country, and especially in
the South. There are now about three hundred of
such clubs in the United States. There is an
average membership of about sixty women to each
club. Some have an enrollment of over two hun-
dred women and there are but few with less than
twenty-five. Wherever there is a nucleus of in-
telligent colored women there will be found a
woman's club. The following is only a partial Hst
of the clubs composing the National association.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CLUB LIST.

NAMES OF THE CLUBS OF THE NATIONAL
ASSOCL\TION OF COLORED WOMEN.

ALABAMA.

Enfaula Woman's Club.

Greensboro Woman's Mutual Benefit Club.

Montgomery Sojourner Truth Club.

Mt. Meigs Woman's Club.

Selma Woman's Club.

Tuskegee Woman's Club.

Tuskegee-Notasulga Woman's Club.

Birmingham Sojourner Truth Club.

Ladies' Auxiliary, Montgomery.

Ten Times One, Montgomery.

ARKANSAS.
Little Rock Branch of National Association.
Woman's Club, Little Rock.

CALIFORNIA.
Los Angeles Woman's Club.

NORTH CAROLINA.
Biddle University Club.

SOUTH CAROLINA.
Charleston Woman's League.
Charleston W. C. T. U.

406

1^ 'm

•<^

MRS. MARY CHURCH TERRELL,
President of the National Association of Colored Women.

407

4o8 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

COLORADO.
Denver, The Woman's League.

CONNECTICUT.
Norwich, Rose of New England League.
FLORIDA.

Jacksonville Woman's Christian Industrial and
Protective Union.

The Phyllis Wheatley Chautauqua Circle, Jackson-
ville.

The Afro-American W^oman's Club, Jacksonville.

GEORGIA.

Atlanta Woman's Club.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Macon.
Columbus, Douglass Reading Circle.
Augusta, Woman's Protective Club.
Woman's Club of Athens.

INDIANA.

The Booker T. Washington Club, Logansport.

ILLINOIS.

Chicago, Ida B. Wells Club.

Chicago, Phyllis Wheatley Club.

Chicago, Woman's Civic League.

Chicago, Women's Conference.

Chicago, Women's Circle.

Chicago, Progressive Circle of King's Daughters.

KANSAS.

Sierra Leone Club.
Woman's Club, Paola.

MRS. HART,

Tacksonville, Fla., Promoter of a Monument to Commemo-

rate the Valor of Black Soldiers in the

Spanish-American War.

409

410 A NEW NEGRO FOR

KENTUCKY.

Louisville, Woman's Improvement Club.,
Echstein Daisy Club, Cane Springs.

LOUISIANA.
New Orleans, Phyllis Wheatley Club.

MASSACHUSETTS.

Boston, Woman's Era Club.

Boston, Lend-a-Hand Club.

Boston Female Benevolent Firm.

Boston, E. M. Thomas League.

Boston Calvary Circle.

New Bedford Woman's Loyal Union.

Salem, Woman's Protective Club.

Cambridge Golden Rule Club.

Chelsea, B. T. Tanner Club.

New Bedford, St. Pierre RufBn Club.

MINNESOTA.

Minneapolis, Ada Sweet Pioneer Club.
Minneapolis and St. Paul, Twin City Woman's Era

Club.
St. Paul, Woman's Loyal Union and John Brown

Industrial Club.

MISSOURI.

JefYerson City Woman's Club.

St. Louis, F. E. W. Harper League.

St. Joseph, F. E. W. H. League.

St. Louis Suffrage Club.

St. Louis, Phyllis Wheatley Club.

St. Louis Woman's Club.

St. Louis Married Ladies' Thimble Club.

A NEW CENTURY 411

Kansas City Club.
Self-Improvement Club, St. Louis.

MICHIGAN.

The Detroit Willing Workers.

Detroit, Phyllis Wheatley Club.

Lima, The Booker T. Washington Club.

Grand Rapids, Married Ladies' 19th Century Club.

Battle Creek, The Sojourner Truth Improvement.

Ann Arbor, The Woman's Federation Club.

NEW YORK.

New York and Brooklyn, Woman's Loyal Union.

Buffalo Woman's Club.

Harlem Woman's Sympathetic Union.

Rochester Woman's Club.

New York and Brooklyn, W. A. A. U.

NEBRASKA.
Omaha Woman's Club.
Woman's Improvement Club.

PENNSYLVANIA.
Pittsburg and Alleghany F. E. W. H. League.
Woman's Loyal Union, Pittsburg.
Washington Young Woman's Twentieth Century
Club.

OHIO.

Toledo Woman's Club. A. M. E., Columbus.

RHODE ISLAND.
Newport Woman's League.
Providence Working Woman's League.
Lucy Thurman W. C. T. U., St. Paul.
The Dunbar Reading Circle, Cleveland.

IDA GRAY NELSON, D. D. S.,

The Only Colored Lady Dentist in the Country. Graduate of

Ann Arbor, Michigan; is very popular and has a large

and lucrative practice in the City of Chicago.

41?

BELLE GARNET,
Graduate Nurse of Provident Hospital and Training School,
^''Chicago, now Pursuing a Course of Medicine
in the Chicago Medical College.

413

414 A NEW NEGRO FOR

TENNESSEE.
Knoxville, Woman's Mutual Improvement Zlub.
Memphis, Coterie Migratory Assembly.
Memphis, Hook's School Association.
Phyllis Wheatley, Nashville.
Jackson, Woman's Club.
Jackson, W. C. T. U.

TEXAS.
Fort Worth Phyllis Wheatley Club.

VIRGINIA.
Woman's League of Roanoke.
Richmond Woman's League.
Cappahoosic Gloucester A. and I. School.
Urbanna Club.

Lynchburg Woman's League.
Lexington Woman's Club.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Washington, D. C, Ladies' Auxiliary Committee.
Washington League.

Washington, Lucy Thurman W. C. T. U.
Woman's Protective Union, Washington, D. C.

WEST VIRGINIA.
Wheeling, Woman's Fortnightly Club.

There are of course hundreds of clubs that are
not yet members of the National association, but
these outside clubs have all been brought into
being by the influence of the National body, and
have received their inspiration and direction from
the same source.

A study of the plans and purposes of these clubs
reveals an interesting similarity. They show that

S. J. EVANS,

Chief Stenographer in One of the Largest Mercantile Houses

in Chicago.

415

4i6 'A NEtV NEGRO POR

the wants, needs, limitations and aspirations of the
Afro-American are about the same everywhere —
North, South, East and West.

If the question be asked: ''What do these clubs
do; what do they stand for in their respective
communities, and what have they actually accom-
plished? satisfactory answer will be found by
studying them a little at short range.

The first thing to be noted is that these club
women are students of their own social condition,
and the clubs themselves are schools in which are
taught and learned, more or less thoroughly, the
near lessons of life and living. All these clubs have
a program for study. In some of the more am-
bitious clubs literature, music and art are studied
more or less seriously, but in all of them race
problems and sociological questions directly re-
lated to the condition of the negro race in Ameri-
ca are the principal subjects for study and discus-
sion.

Many of the clubs, in their programs for study,
plan to invite from time to time prominent men
and women to address them on questions of vital
interest. In this way club members not only be-
come wide aw^ake and interested in questions of
importance to themselves and their community,
but men and women who help to make and shape
public opinion have an opportunity to see and
know the better side of the colored race.

Race prejudice yields more readily to this inter-
change of service and helpfulness than to any other
force in the relationship of races.

The lessons learned in these women's organiza-
tions of the country all have a direct bearing on

A Mew c&NfURY 417

the social conditions of the negro race. They are
such lessons that are not taught in the schools or
preached from the pulpits. Home-making has
been new business to the great majority of the
women whom the women's clubs aim to reach and
influence. For this reason the principal object of
club studies is to teach that homes are somethmg
better and dearer than rooms, furniture, comforts
and food. How to make the homes of the race
the shrines of all the domestic virtues rather than
a mere shelter, is the important thing that colored
women are trying to learn and teach through their
club organizations.

Take for example one club in Chicago, known
as the "Colored Woman's Conference," and it will
be found that its aims and efforts are typical of the
best purposes of club life among colored women.
The special activities and aims of this particular
club are the estabUshment of kindergartens, moth-
ers' meetings, sewing schools for girls, day nur-
series, employment bureau; promoting the cause
of education by estabUshing a direct line of interest
between the teacher and the home life of every
child; friendly visiting and protection to friendless
and homeless girls; and a penny savings bank as a
practical lesson in frugality and economy. The
special thing to be noted in this program is that
colored women are not afraid to set for themselves
hard and serious tasks and to make whatever sacri-
fices necessary to realize their high purposes.

A lack of kindergarten teachers more than a lack
of money has retarded the work of estabUshing
kindergartens, especially in the South, where they
are specially needed. The progressive woman feels

4i8 A NEW NEGRO FOR

that an increased number of kindergartens would
have a determining influence in shaping and
moulding the character of thousands of colored
children whose home lives are scant and meager.

The success of the kindergarten work in St.
Louis, Mo., under the direction of Mrs. Haydee
Campbell and her able assistant, Miss Helene Ab-
bott, is a happy justification of the wisdom and
anxiety of the colored club woman to extend these
schools wherever it is possible to do so.

The mothers' meetings established in connec-
tion with almost every club have probably had a
more direct and beneficial influence on the every-,
day problems of motherhood and home-making
than any other activity. Meetings of this sort have
been the chief feature of the women's clubs organ-
ized by the Tuskegee teachers among the women
of the hard plantation life, within reach of the Tus-
kegee Institute. Thousands of these women in
the rural Hfe of the South continue to live under
the shadow of bondaged conditions. There has
come to them scarcely a ray of light as to a better
way of how to live for themselves and their off-
spring.

It is to the credit of the high usefulness of the
colored club woman that she has taken the initia-
tive in doing something to reach and help a class
of women who have lived isolated from all the.
regenerating and upHfting influences of freedom
and education. It is the first touch of sympathy
that has connected the progressive colored woman
with her neglected and unprogressive sister.

In this connection especial word ought to be
said in behalf of these clubs as agencies of rescue

MRS. C S. SMITH,

Nashville, Tenn., Late Secretary of the National Association

of Colored Women.

419

420 A NEW NEGRO FOR

and protection to the many unprotected and de-
fenseless colored girls to be found in every large
city. No race of young women in this country
have so little done for them as the young colored
woman. She is unknown, she is not believed in,
and in respect to favors that direct and uplift, she
is an alien, and unheeded. They have been liter-
ally shut out from the love, favor and protection
tha^ chivalry and a common pride have built up
around the personaUty and character of the young
women of almost every other race. The colored
women's clubs have had heart enough and intelli-
gence enough to recognize their opportunity and
duty toward their own young women, and in nu-
merous instances have been the very salvation of
unfortunate colored girls.

An interesting example of the usefulness of these
clubs in this rescue work was recently shown by the
success of the Colored Woman's Conference, above
mentioned, in saving a girl, friendless, and a victim
of unfortunate circumstances, from the stain of the
penitentiary by pledging to take her in charge and
to save her to herself and society by placing her
under good and redeeming influences.

These women's clubs have never failed to cham-
pion the cause of every worthy applicant for ad-
vice and assistance. They have made the cause of
the neglected young colored woman one of com-
manding interest, and are interesting in her behalf
every possible means of education, and are en-
deavoring to create for her a kindlier feeling and a
better degree of respect, and to improve her stand-
ing among young women generally. The clubs
have entered upon this department of their work

A NEW CENTURY 421

with great heartiness and have enhsted in behalf
of young women new influences of helpfulness and
encouragement. Colored girls with poor homes
and no homes are many. Thousands of them are
the poor, weak and misguided daughters of ill-
starred mothers. To reach out for and save them
from a bitter fate; to lift them into a higher sphere
of hopefulness and opportunity is a task altogether
worthy of the best efforts of club women.

What has been said of the earnestness and prac-
tical aim of colored women's clubs in behalf of
kindergartens for the children and salvation for
the girls may also be said of the practical way in
which they have established and sustained sewing
schools, mending schools and friendly visitations in
behalf of neighborhood respectability and decency,
and of their various committees that visit reform-
atory institutions and jails in search of opportuni-
ties to be useful. Numerous and interesting in-
stances might be given to show to what extent
these women are realizing their desire to be useful
in the social regeneration of their race.

This chapter on the club movement among col-
ored women would be incomplete without some
notice of the leaders of the movement. Nothing
that these club women have done or aimed to do is
more interesting than themselves. What a variety
of accomplishments, talents, successes and am-
bitions have been brought into view and notice by
these hitherto obscure women of a ransomed race!
Educated? Yes, besides the thousands educated
in the common schools, hundreds of them have
been trained in the best colleges and universities

MISS MATTIE B. DAVIS,
President The Woman's Club. Athens. Ga.

422

MRS MARY L. DAVENPORT,
President of the Chicago Woman's Conference.

424 'A NEW NEGRO FOR

in the country, and some of them have spent sev-
eral years in the noted schools of Europe.

The women thus trained and educated are busily
pursuing every kind of avocation not prohibited by
American prejudices. As educators, fully twenty
thousand of them are at work in the schools, col-
leges and universities of the country, and some of
them teach everything required to be taught from
the kindergarten to the university. Among these
educators and leaders of Afro-American woman-
hood are to be found linguists, mathematicians,
musicians, artists, authors, newspaper writers, lec-
turers and reform agitators, with varying degrees
of excellence and success. There are women in the
professions of law, medicine, dentistry, preaching,
trained nursing, managers of successful business
enterprises, and women of small independent for-
tunes made and saved within the past twenty-five
years.

There are women plain, beautiful, charming,
bright conversationalists, liuent, resourceful in
ideas, forceful in execution, and women of all sorts
of temperament and idiosyncracies and force and
delicacy of character.

All this of course is simply amazing to people
trained in the habit of rating colored women too
low and knowing only the menial type. To such
people she is a revelation.

.The woman thus portrayed is the real new wo-
man in American life. This w^oman, as if by
magic, has succeeded in lifting herself as completely
from the stain and meanness of slavery as if a cen-
tuiy had elapsed since the day of emancipation.
This new woman, with the club behind her and the

MRS. BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
425

426 A NEW NEGRO FOK

club service in her heart and mind, has come to the
front in an opportune time. She is needed to
change the old idea of things implanted in the
minds of the white race and there sustained and
hardened into a national habit by the debasing in-
fluence of slavery estimates. This woman is needed
as an educator of public opinion. She is a happy
refutation of the idle insinuations and common
skepticism as to the womanly worth and promise
of the whole race of women. She has come to
enrich American life with finer sympathies, and to
enlarge the boundary of fraternity and the demo-
cracy of love among American women. She has
come to join her talents,, her virtues, her intelli-
gence, her sacrifices and her love in the work of
redeeming the unredeemed from stagnation, from
cheapness and from narrowness.

Quite as important as all this she has come to
bring new hope and fresh assurances to the hapless
young women of her own race. Life is not a
failure. All avenues are not closed. Womanly
worth of whatever race or complexion is appre-
ciated. Love, sympathy, opportunity and helpful-
ness are within the reach of those who can deserve
them. The world is still yearning for pure hearts,
willing hands, and bright minds. This and much
more is the message brought by this new woman
to the hearts of thousands discouraged and hope-
less young colored women.

It is a real message of courage, a real inspiration
that has touched more sides of the Afro-American
race than any other message or thing since the
dawn of freedom. '"" '"'

This is not exaggeration or fancy. Demonstra-

A NEW CENTURV 4^7

tion of it can be seen, heard and felt in the wide-
spread renewal of hope and effort among the pres-
ent generation of young Afro-American women.
These young women, thus aroused to courag*^,
to hope and self-assertion toward better things, can
find inspiring examples of success and achieve-
ments in the women of their own race. They have
beo-un to feel something of the exaltation of race
pride and race ideals. They have been brought
face to face with standards of living that are high
and ennobUng, and have been made conscious of
the severe penalties of social misdoings.

Around them has been created a sentiment of
care pride, protection and chivalry that is every
day 'deepening and widening the distinctions be-
tween right and wrong in woman's relationship to
man, child and society.

The glow of optimism has coursed so easily
through this chapter concerning the work done
and attempted by colored women that the import-
ance of it all may seem somewhat exaggerated.

It perhaps, should be confessed that m spite of
the 'actual good already realized, the club move-
ment is more of a prophecy than a thing accom-
plished. Colored women organized have succeeded
in touching the heart of the race, and for the hrst
time the thrill of unity has been felt. They have
set in motion moral forces that are beginning to
socialize interests that have been kept apart by
ip-norance and the spirit of dependence.

They have begun to make the virtues as well as
the wants of the colored women known to the
American people. They are striving to put a new
social value on themselves. Yet their work has

42§ A NEW NEGRO FOR

just begun. It takes more than five or ten years to
effect the social uph'ft of a whole race of people.

The club movement is well purposed. There is
in it a strong faith, an enthusiasm born of love and
sympathy, and an ever-increasing intelligence in
the ways and means of affecting noble results. It
is not a fad. It is not an imitation. It is not a
passing sentiment. It is not an expedient, or an
experiment. It is rather the force of a new intelli-
gence against the old ignorance. The struggle of
an enlightened conscience against the whole brood
of social miseries born out of the stress and pain
of a hated past.

FANNIE BARRIER WILLIAMS.

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Full text of "A new Negro for a new century : an accurate and up-to-date record of the upward struggles of the Negro race"

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